No I in Team


"We obtain the concept, as we do the form, by overlooking what is individual and actual; whereas nature is acquainted with no forms and no concepts, and likewise with no species, but only with an X which remains inaccessible and undefinable for us." —Friedrich Nietzsche.


1. Fresh Faces

The jeep's engine roared as the young soldier in the driver's seat sped the vehicle along the gravel road. James leant forward from the back seat, his seatbelt straining against his chest, to speak in Stryker's ear.

"How much longer?"

"Not long," Stryker said, with a small smile.

"That's what you said six hours ago, when we got off your plane and got into this car."

"I promise we'll be there soon."

"And where is 'there' exactly?" he demanded. He glanced at Victor, and saw his brother's lips quirk up at the corners. The smell of amusement reached James' sensitive nose.

"You already know I can't tell you where we're going," Stryker countered. He turned his head to look at the occupants of the back seat. "Should you decide to take me up on my offer, that information will be disclosed to you at the appropriate time. Until then, please consider yourselves my guests, and don't worry about where we are or where we're heading. It's just one more stop on the road for you."

James sat back and growled. This 'Stryker' was a cagey bastard, dangling the carrot temptingly in front of their noses whilst offering no solid answers. But that was the government for you; they wouldn't tell you anything unless they had you by the balls. But anger was useless. Sure, he could be angry at the man who'd 'rescued' both himself and Victor from that Viet prison, but anger wouldn't get him ansers.

So, James closed his eyes, drew a long breath of air through his nose, and focused his attention on what his senses fed to him He'd already seen the road ahead, illuminated in the darkness by the white headlights of the jeep, and there was nothing but trees and bushes. His keen sense of smell had a little more difficulty inside the vehicle; gas was the prevalent odour, and it tasted sharp and oily in the back of his mouth. Beside the gas, human sweat was the next strongest thing, and each man inside the jeep had his own unique scent.

Beside him, sitting with a relaxed tension and casual alertness, James' half-brother Victor smelled of strength and confidence, and a little excitement. James knew where the excitement stemmed from; Major Stryker had promised the brothers 'special privileges,' and Victor liked privileges. Though James would never admit it to anyone, Victor scared him at times. He wasn't afraid of his brother; he was afraid of what his brother was capable of. Together they'd fought in some half-dozen wars and countless minor skirmishes, battling their enemies side by side. Victor wasn't afraid of death, nor pain, and he seemed to consider the spoils of war his God-given right. Usually the spoils included wealth, but more than once a woman had taken his fancy, and James had been forced to step in to stop his brother from crossing a line that no man should ever cross.

Stryker himself had the passenger seat in the front of the jeep, and he smelled like a cat who'd just brought home two mice. Not that there was anything mouse-like at all about James and Victor, but that was one of the things which intrigued James most; it was rare to find an individual who didn't fear what he and his brother were, and rarer to find someone who seemed to understand what it meant to be different, what it meant to be always on the run, always one step ahead of the game. Of course, James had yet to determine what game Stryker was playing. That's why he'd agreed to come along. Just to see what Stryker was up to. Just to see how this might work out. No promises had been made. Not yet. Maybe never.

The driver of the jeep was a Private or a Corporal; James didn't know or care for the rank. Such things made little difference when you outlived your superior officers through sheer virtue of being immortal. The young man did, however, smell of nervousness, but it was a controlled nervousness, and James couldn't tell whether the guy was nervous because of his passengers, or because of the speed he'd been told to drive the jeep at in the dark. Could have been either, or both.

There were other smells, which came rushing in through the open window on Victor's side of the jeep. Scents of trees and flowers, of animals rutting and shedding and dying, of fresh breezes which hinted at a rain storm to come. Fresh air was one of James' favourite smells. There was something clean about it, something which made him feel new inside when he inhaled it. Sometimes he could smell the static in the air, which made him sneeze uncontrollably—and made Victor laugh at him—but even that was better than the smell of a town and its miasma of cooked and overcooked food, of stale alcohol and piss-stained walls, of hundreds and thousands of human beings, pressed together, their scents intermingling to the point where at times it was overwhelming.

But the worst smell… the worst was a smell he was sadly all too familiar with. It haunted his every movement, following him around, seeking him out even when he tried to avoid it. Blood smelled of metal, of bitter warmth and even sometimes of fear and pain. Victor, James knew, revelled in that smell, enjoyed being the cause of it. James tolerated it because he had to. Because wars needed soldiers, and James wasn't good at much except fighting. It was the only life he'd known, brought into it at the tender age of twelve when, in a fit of primal rage, he'd killed a man he hadn't known he was his father, and then had been dragged further into the life by Victor, who didn't want to keep going alone, who needed his little brother to look out for him and hold him back when the blood-lust was upon him.

The sounds were as difficult to make out as the smells. The jeep's engine roared, a primitive beast complaining at its ill-treatment, and it drowned out most other sounds. Victor, of course, sat in perfect silence, whilst Stryker's radio crackled with static as it intermittently lost its reception. The driver was breathing heavily, the sound audible above the growling engine; further indication of the nerves he held tightly leashed.

The last sense James called upon as his would-be employers bore him ever forwards, was his sense of touch. Most people barely even considered it a sense at all, but James, like a wild animal, was in tune with every haptic sensation which crossed his skin. Cool breezes were gentle caresses. Blood was a warm shower which made him feel unclean. Water, whether hot or cold, felt cleansing and renewing. Different materials with different fibres each told their own stories; from cold smooth leather, to warm itchy wool, every touch told him something about where he was.

Right now, his tactile sense told him that he was being bounced around in the back of a jeep, in some unknown part of a country—either Canada or the USA, he knew that much—and that the seat was an uncomfortable canvas polymer. The bouncing was unpleasant, and a result of the fact that this road was not paved but stone-chipped; something he had already confirmed with his eyes. That, in itself, told James almost half of what he needed to know. An unpaved road meant only one thing. Secrecy. This was not a public highway. Wherever Stryker was taking them, it was probably off the map, hard to find, and well-guarded. Just what James had come to expect from the military.

On the seat beside him, Victor seemed completely unconcerned, despite the fact that only some twenty-hours earlier, both he and James had been executed by firing-squad for Victor's killing of a senior officer. For immortals like Victor and James, death by firing-squad was more of a minor inconvenience than anything.

Deciding that Stryker might respond to a different mode of attack, James leant forward again to make himself heard over the roaring engine.

"Tell me about this 'special' team you're putting together."

"All in good time, James."

James growled in his throat, and Victor chuckled. "You've flown us halfway across the world to meet this team of yours, and you won't even tell us a single thing about them? You're a soldier; would you settle for going in blind?"

"If my superior officers ordered it, of course," Stryker replied. His scent didn't change one bit.

"You ain't my superior officer yet. And if you ever want to be, you should know that Victor and I don't enjoy surprises."

"I like being the bearer of surprises, more than the receiver," Victor agreed, cracking his knuckles noisily.

Stryker sighed, but showed no signs of fear. Quite unlike the young driver, who suddenly smelled of growing concern.

"Very well, gentlemen," Stryker relented. "I'm not authorised to tell you the specifics, but I can say that the team is comprised of people who are like you. People who are… special."

"Immortals?" James asked.

"No, not immortals. But they are mutants."

James gave a snort of disgust. Mutants. The phrase had cropped up at some point within the past ten or twenty years, and was used by the media to describe people with seemingly paranormal abilities. A lot of folks didn't believe in mutants; hell, more people believed in aliens, which showed just how stupid people could be whenever they got together in large enough groups. But the phrase hadn't died out, and it was tossed around whenever some unnatural event or unexplained killing needed a scapegoat. Once, that scapegoat would have been the Devil, feared and reviled by good, God-fearing people. Now, mutants were slowly taking the Devil's place.

Before he could respond fully, the jeep screeched to a halt, sliding sideways a few feet as the brakes clamped down on the discs of the wheels and sent them skidding over the loose gravel and stone chippings. Inertia tried to carry James forward, but he pulled himself backwards into his seat, helped by Victor's firm hand on his shoulder. His older brother flashed him a toothy smile, his canines peeping down from the top of his mouth over his bottom lip.

In front of the jeep a chain-link fence rose from the ground, reaching a height of some ten or eleven feet. Such a fence would not stop the brothers from getting in or out of the place, which led James to suspect it was used more to mark a boundary than as a form of restraining enclosure. His suspicions were confirmed when, just seconds later, a blinding floodlight came on, illuminating the car and causing both James and Victor to squint away from the harshness of the light. There were voices; somebody had approached the jeep to check the identity of its occupants. The guard seemed satisfied, because a moment later the fence was being pulled back—an automated system, judging by the mechanical groaning James heard—and the vehicle was moving forward. Reluctantly, James opened his eyes, and saw that the floodlight was covered from above by a canopy. That, too, told him something. Whatever this place was, it wasn't meant to be seen easily from the sky. Did Stryker fear enemy planes, or satellites? Or something else entirely?

The driver took the vehicle into a large building which turned out to be a garage. Six other jeeps were parked there, and James could tell by the smell of fresh gas that at least two of them had been used recently, even though their engines were now cool. The jeep rolled into the garage, taking an empty space—there was still room for one more vehicle—and the engine was switched off. For a brief moment, James enjoyed the blessed silence. For as long as he could remember, he'd struggled with loud noises, just as he'd struggled with bright lights and powerful smells. To a man whose senses were heightened, such things were often a curse more often than they were a blessing.

"Gentleman," said Stryker, as he turned in his seat, "welcome to Bunker Five."

Neither James nor Victor bothered asking what that meant. Government departments were prone to giving stupid code-names to things. Bunker Five probably wasn't its actual designation, and James knew that there would most likely be no record of this place on any official file.

"Thank you, Parsons. You're dismissed," the Major said to the driver. The young man saluted and then beat a stately retreat, his worried scent lingering behind in the car even when he himself was gone from the garage. "So, shall we meet the rest of the team?"

"Lead on," Victor spoke up, and James nodded.

Stryker led them away from the vehicle pool and towards a solid-looking door. An access card was removed from a chain around his neck, and run through the card-scanner. A light on the scanner turned green; access granted. James glanced to his brother, saw the interested speculation on Victor's face, and smiled to himself. Victor had always had a fascination with electric lights. They hadn't been invented when the men had been boys, growing up in the untamed wilds of Canada.

Inside the bunker there were, of course, corridors. Neatly-kept, straight-lines, all very regulation. The base smelt of soap and disinfectant and hot food. James' stomach rumbled at the last smell, and he realised he hadn't eaten for about thirty hours. Soldiers often went hungry, and in the day leading up to this moment, James had been too busy fighting and being executed by firing squad to find himself some decent grub. Traitors and killers were not afforded the rites of a last meal, and since being freed from the Viet prison by Stryker, the only chance James had had to eat was on the plane back to America. Unfortunately, his stomach was always very tender when flying. It was probably a good thing he hadn't eaten since the day before, otherwise he might have lost the contents of his stomach halfway across the Pacific.

"So where's the team?" Victor asked, as Stryker led them past a number of closed doors.

Stryker glanced at his watch. "Twenty o'eight… free time. They'll be in the rec room. And yes, before you ask, I'm taking you there now."

Rec room? What kind of military facility was this? As far as James knew, a soldier's preferred method of recreation was getting drunk, but he couldn't smell any alcohol in this place. No scent of malted barley, no fruity smell of hops… not even the sharp odour of a home-made moonshine still. He was, he realised, probably going to hate this place. He liked alcohol not for its taste, but for its ability to help him forget. Or to at least blur the sharp edges off the darker memories stored in his mind.

There were no more questions as the brothers followed Stryker down the corridor. On occasion, James heard the sound of booted feet marching at a half-step pace, but the first indication he had that anybody other than soldiers were on the base was the sound of music pulsing from a pair of double-doors that Stryker approached with that same cursed smell of calmness. The doors opened at his touch, and he held one of them to allow the brothers to enter.

The rec room was not what James had been expecting. There were chairs and tables, and a grille-bar in one corner that had been shut down for the night, the appliances switched off and already cold. Another corner of the room was dedicated to gym equipment; there were two treadmills facing out to the rest of the room, a bench and a set of free weights, dumbbells and barbells both. A tall, mountain of a man, bigger even than Victor, was benching four hundred pounds and had barely even broken a sweat. A third corner of the room held weapons stands and lockers, and a variety of training dummies, most of which were riddled with bullets. An olive-skinned man was seated at a table next to one of the lockers, and he had a gun dismantled into pieces all over the table so that he could clean it thoroughly. Looked like a pistol of some sort, but James would be the first to admit he wasn't a whizz with guns. He knew enough to shoot and clean whatever weapons whichever army he was fighting for put in his hands, but when it came down to the crunch, he preferred to use his own natural weapons every time. Guns were so… impersonal. So cold. Gunpowder always left an unpleasant taste in his mouth.

There was a TV in the last corner of the room, and it changed channel frequently, seemingly without input from anyone. The leather sofas in front of it were empty, but three men were sitting at a round table, a set of cards and chips spread between them. One of the men was black, but skin colour didn't bother Logan, and it didn't bother Victor either. Black men, white men, mutants, humans… people were people, regardless of skin colour or 'special' abilities. The other two men were white, and one of them seemed quite young, early to mid twenties at most. He had a small, wiry frame, and even from across the room, James could smell how tense he was. The remaining man was taller, more solidly built, but that was all James could see of him, because his back was to the door. When he spoke, though, there was a familiar lilt to his words.

"Well hello, ladies," the man said, glancing at the cards he'd just been dealt and now held casually in his hand. So, a fellow Canadian. James shook his head. The man held only a two and a six between his fingers; no queens at all. But it was enough to make the black man and the scrawny man smell a little more cautious.

"I hate to interrupt rec time," Stryker said, stepping into the room and leaving James and Victor to follow, "but we have visitors."

All activity stopped. The man on the bench halted with his barbell held high above his head, his triceps bulging from the effort of holding the weight still. The three at the table lowered their cards and turned their attention to the newcomers. But it was the man with the disassembled gun who moved first. He stood up and took a few steps forward, running his brown eyes over the brothers, taking a measure of them. His lips curled at one corner, a smile or a sneer, and a scent tickled James' nose; amusement. Not from Victor, this time.

"New recruits, Major?" the man asked. Then he openly smirked. "Or just practice?"

Victor growled, a low rumble in his throat, and James gave him a small shake of the head, a glance of warning to tell him not to let his anger get the better of him. He could tell that Victor didn't like this man's attitude, and he couldn't blame him. They hadn't come all this way to be put down by some kid young enough to be James' great, great, great-grandson.

"Potentials," Stryker replied. Though he didn't say potential what. "Everybody, this is James Howlett and Victor Creed. James, Victor, meet the team. The hot-shot with the gun is David North. Over on the weights is Fred Dukes. Don't worry, he can hold that for hours yet. And here we have John Wraith, Wade Wilson and Chris Bradley," Stryker said, gesturing to the black man, the tall man and the scrawny man in turn.

"You guys forget how to shower?" Wade Wilson asked. "Or do you do that whole mud-bath thing for fun? I hear it can do wonders for your skin. There's women who pay hundred of dollars to go to health spas and have that stuff plastered all over their faces. I bet—"

"Can it, Wade," Stryker said, cutting off the tirade.

James glanced down at himself, and then at Victor. Of course, they'd just been pulled out of a war zone. After being shot by a firing squad. With no chance to get changed into fresh clothes. Their shirts were riddled with bullet holes, though there was no dried blood caking them; only mud, which had gone stiff when it had dried. But that was war for you. None of these boys looked like they'd even seen a war on TV, much less experienced one in real life. Though on second glance, he thought perhaps the big guy by the weight—Fred Dukes—might have seen his share of military action. He had a soldierly look about him.

"Yessir, canning it," Wade replied, leaving a short silence that was filled with the sound of a gun being rapidly put back together. In the blink of an eye, David North had his pistol whole again, and holstered at his hip. James heard another low rumble from Victor; this one came from lower down, in his chest.

"Well," Stryker said, clapping his hands once as if he'd just done something amazing that needed recognition. The scrawny man at the poker table jumped a little at the sound. "Why don't I leave you men to get to know each other a little? James, Victor, I'll have a couple of guards waiting for you in the corridor. We've got rooms for you for the night, so you can wash up, get into fresh clothes, and then tomorrow we can have a tour of the facility. Until then, have a talk with the team. I'm sure you'll be pleased with what you hear."

Stryker retreated, which left another silence. James was now acutely aware that all eyes in the room were upon him. And upon Victor, too. But he felt their gazes keenly, and he didn't like it. Their eyes were cold, scrutinising, full of unspoken judgements. Though he tried to stop it, his own gaze went to that of the gun-slinger, David North, and he met the man's appraising stare. The tension in the air was palpable, invading all his senses, smelling like the prickly wariness of two wolf-packs circling around each other. It settled on his skin, choking his pores, invading his brain as he inhaled the scent, which made him angry. He didn't like the smell of tension, and Victor liked it even less. Already, the older brother's lips were pulling back into a wordless snarl. The animal which writhed inside of James, trying to break free, was already at the surface of Victor's mind. It always had been.

Finally, Fred Dukes put down his impossibly heavy barbell and stood up, ambling over to the doors with an easy long stride. He towered a head higher than both James and Victor, and gave them a crazy little smile as he looked down at them.

"So, you're freaks like us, huh?" Fred asked.

And just like that, the tension dissipated. The three at the table relaxed; except for the scrawny kid, who still seemed a little tense. Probably his natural state, James realised.

"We might be freaks," Victor said, squaring off to Fred, though James could smell no genuine animosity from him. "But we're nothing like you."

"True enough," Wade spoke up. "We're considerably cleaner, for a start. Seriously, where did Stryker find you guys? The middle of the jungle?"

"Something like that," James replied, keeping Victor in view from the corner of his eye. Just because he didn't smell angry, didn't mean he wouldn't react to the taller, more-muscled Fred Dukes. Victor could be… unpredictable, at times.

"What can you do?" David North asked. He still looked smug for some reason. James felt every hair on his body rise. Some people just rubbed him the wrong way, and David North was definitely one of those people.

"We can fight," Victor said, running his eyes up and down Fred Dukes' body. "And we don't die."

The black man—John Wraith, James recalled—gave a quiet snort. "Everybody dies."

"We don't," James told him.

"A challenge, then," David North said, with another unpleasant smile. Victor immediately transferred his attention from the hulking Dukes to North, and growled angrily. "Try it, mud-boy," said North. His fingers hovered over his holster. "I'd drop you before you got two paces."

"I'd listen to him, if I were you," the small guy, Chris Bradley, spoke up. "He's a quick draw."

"Bet I'm quicker," said Victor. "And a lot harder to kill."

"Oh, we're placing bets?" asked Wade. He fished around in his pocket, and pulled out a twenty dollar bill. It was American currency, confirming to James that he was indeed in the US, and not Canada. Well that was just bloody great. "Twenty on Zero."

"Zero?" James asked.

"Agent Zero," North spoke up. "My code-name."

"Ooh, 'agent.' Impressive," Victor said with a sarcastic grin that showed off his elongated canines. "Must make you feel all big and important, Agent."

It took only a split second for North to draw his weapon and have it trained on Victor's heart. But he didn't pull the trigger, and Victor laughed. Only James knew why. If the firing squad hadn't been able to drop Victor by riddling his body with bullets, a single pistol certainly wouldn't do the job.

"What about the rest of you?" James asked the group. "Do you all have stupid code-names as well?"

John Wraith looked a little sheepish, then spoke up. "Kestrel. But I don't care much for it. I prefer John."

Chris Bradley nodded. "They code-named me Bolt, but I don't like mine all that much either. Everyone just calls me Bradley."

"Let me guess," said Victor, glancing first at Dukes and then at Wilson. "Big-foot, and Big-mouth?"

"No, fortunately we escaped the horror of being given dire government code-names," Wilson said, whilst Dukes looked to be still considering a suitable retort. "It's Wade. Just Wade. And Fred. Just Fred. Heheh. Just. But what about you guys? You're going to need code-names if you join us, right? Hmm, what about Vicky and Jimmy?"

"Only my brother gets to call me Jimmy," James said, throwing a glare at the younger man just to get his point across. "You can call me Logan, if you want to call me anything. And we haven't decided if we're joining you yet."

"Why 'Logan'?" asked John.

"It's an inside joke."

"And you really can't die?" asked Bradley. He seemed to be coming out of his shell a little more, and smelled less of nerves and tension.

"I can prove it. Got a knife?"

"Uh, no?"

"I do," said Wade. He lifted something from the seat beside him, brandishing a wickedly-sharp katana. "Just something I keep close to hand for emergencies."

"Nice blade," James said, eyeing it appreciatively. "Where'd you get it?"

"A hardware store in Iowa. Had to battle a robot ninja for it. Managed to take his head off with a chainsaw and kept his sword as a memento."

"Ninjas don't use samurai swords," James pointed out. "And robots don't have gender."

"Touché."

When no further answer on the origin of the blade was forthcoming, James stepped forward, closed his hand around the cutting edge of the blade, and slid his hand down it. A single trickle of blood ran down the edge, and James held up his hand, revealing a long, clean slice in his skin. Within seconds his flesh had knitted itself back together, and there was not a single scratch on him.

"Oh, that's just great," Wade said, looking at the blood trickling down the sword. "Do you have any idea what blood does to the iron in a sword? Why don't you just sweat all over it whilst you're at it, too? Gah." He wandered off towards the kitchen, mumbling to himself about finding a clean enough rag to polish the sword with.

"Now that is cool," said Bradley, looking at James' hand with excitement in his eyes. "So you have super-healing?"

"And these," said James. He concentrated on his hands, preparing himself for that brief blossom of pain, and three long claws of hard bone slid out from between the joints of his fingers, extending to a length of about twelve inches. The eyes of both Bradley and John Wraith went wide with surprise. North looked on with mild disdain, whilst Fred cocked his head and examined James' claws. From the kitchen, the sound of Wade talking to himself could be heard.

"Super-healing isn't all we can do," Victor said, his own claws extending over an inch from the tips of every finger and thumb. Had he not been wearing thick army boots, his long toenails would have been visible, too.

"So," James said. "We already know that Mr Agent over there is quick on the draw. What about the rest of you? Fair's fair."

"I got this thing I can do," said Fred, from behind the brothers. "I can make myself go real heavy, so nothing can move me."

"Super-density, the Bunker Five scientists call it," explained Wraith. "They tried driving a jeep into him, at sixty miles an hour. Fastest way I ever seen of wrecking a good car is driving it into Fred Dukes. He's not only super-dense, but super strong. He's also got a pretty thick skin… in more ways than one."

Fred nodded, and Bradley spoke up.

"I don't have any sort of super-speed or super-strength, but I can manipulate electrical fields."

James glanced at the TV. "That was you."

"Yep. And this." Bradley narrowed his eyes and the lights in the room began to dim, until they were in total darkness. James' hearing and sense of smell automatically sharpened, to adjust for his lack of vision.

"Damnit, Bradley," Wade called from the kitchen. "I told you, I don't do any of that kinky in-the-dark shit. I'm a lights-on guy all the way."

The lights sprang back to life, temporarily blinding James, and he blinked a few times to clear his vision, shaking his head to rid it of remaining shadows. When his eyes adapted to the light, he looked at Bradley anew. Sure, the guy was about a hundred pounds wet through, but if he could manipulate electrical fields… Jesus, he could bypass the security in every bank across the country. Hell, he'd probably have no problem with the security on this base. Clearly, then, he was here by his own choice. It would be hard to keep a man like that prisoner.

"What about you, John?" said James. "What's your mutant power?"

Suddenly, John disappeared from his seat, and reappeared in the blink of an eye, standing upon one of the treadmills. Then he was gone again, and back in his original seat.

"Teleportation, mostly. I can go metres or miles, and very little can keep me out."

James nodded. Suddenly, this 'team' was beginning to make sense. Bradley and Wraith to bypass security. Zero to handle the firearms. Fred to do the heavy lifting. And now James and Victor, to do what they did best; fighting anybody left standing after the rest of the team had opened the doors.

"What about you?" he asked Wade, who was returning from the kitchen.

"Me? I'm like you, only younger, cleaner, and without the crazy cat claws." Wade offered a grin.

"And you have a super-sized ego, too," Victor said.

"I just tell it like it is." The katana started to move in Wade's hands, becoming a blur of flashing silver within the space of a second. It moved so fast that even James' sharp eyes couldn't keep track of it, and the display ended with Wade performing a backwards somersault, sheathing the sword inside a previously unseen saya fastened across his back the moment his feet touched the ground again. "Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all night," he said, affecting a bow to an impressed imaginary audience.

James looked to his brother, and Victor gave the slightest nod. Yeah, maybe this place was somewhere they could fit in. Somewhere they could be themselves, and not have to worry about pretending to be normal. A place they could finally call home.

All it needed now was a bar.