A man stood in his office in one of the top floors of one of the tallest skyscrapers in New York City, and looked out over the city. The city was a war zone, like much of the rest of the United States and had been so on and off for the last ten years. Hard to imagine at times that it's was only ten years since Magneto tried to mutate the world leaders. His plan was foiled, thank God, but the irony was that the plan backfired on him. His, admittedly laudable, goal was to unite mutants and ordinary humans. By wrong means certainly but the goal itself he would have agreed to once. But the plan couldn't have failed more spectacularly.

Ordinary humans had been mindful of mutants for some time back then, and even feared them. When what had really happened on the Statue of Liberty that night had leaked out, the fear and mindfulness quickly turned to anger and hate. Even towards the so-called X-men, despite that they were the ones that had averted the danger. No, not despite. Because they were the ones. They showed quite clearly that their powers could be deadly. What if they too were to act against humanity? And the population at large didn't take kindly to people, mutants or otherwise, taking the law in their own hands.

So, the law that required that mutants were forced to be registered as such was passed quickly. It didn't stay that way for very long however. Professor Xavier and his students used every opportunity they could find to fight for a law they found being unconstitutional not to mention morally wrong. They only succeeded in taking it beyond registration though. Three years later mutants had no rights under the law. It was no crime to kill a mutant. In fact, rather the reverse. If you killed a mutant you would get the equivalent of a year's salary put into your bank-account with a "Thank you" note from the government attached. It wasn't even called killing, everything to separate the mutants from humans. It was called retirement. The police-departments in every major city even had special units specifically put together to fight mutants.

When the man had come that far in his thoughts, he noticed some thunder across the town close to central park. Considering that it was a cloud free day he assumed that it was the mutant known as Storm being taken care of.

True enough. Only a minute later he got a phone call from one of his subordinates. "Ororo Munroe has been taken care of. Do you want her dead or should we attempt the transforming-process?"

"Dead. She's too dangerous and to strong-willed to be transformed, Mr. Creed."

"Consider it done." The man growled on the other line and the phone hung up.

Mr. Creed, the man thought. Formerly known as Sabre-tooth. The only one of Magneto's brotherhood still alive, and only because he was found to be useful. The only mutants who were free to live were the ones that could be used to track down other mutants. The rest became retired on sight or forced to live in sheltered areas. Professor Xavier's former school was one of those areas. The school is no more but a large concrete-building surrounded by electrical fences and devices designed to remove mutant powers was now the living area of mutants that either had harmless powers or were due for the transformation process.

It was nothing Xavier or his students could do anything about either. Xavier himself was dead. He was one of the first ones to get executed together with Jean Grey and Cable. Telepaths were too dangerous to live. The men known as Kurt Wagner or Nightcrawler and others like Kitty Pryde, aka Shadowcat died in their attempts to rescue them. And now, with Storm dead, that left only two remaining members of the X-men. The Wolverine and Rogue, somewhere out there Cyclops. He had simply vanished after Jean's death, now simply a mutant myth. Rumors had it that the Wolverine and Rogue were leading two different resistance-teams but nothing that has been proved yet. If it was true, they needed to be taken care of. The teams they might be leading were most likely former students of Xavier's and wanted revenge.

"Excuse me, Sir."

The inter-com. "Yes?"

"Officers Creed and Rasputin here to see you."

"Let them in." Two large men walked in, burly and irrigated. Rasputin suffered burn marks from a possible lightening strike.

"Creed and Rasputin. I take it that Storm's dead now?"

"Positive sir. Her body's being taken downtown to the crematory as we speak."

"Excellent. Now, I have another appointment for you. Creed, your mission is to hunt down the Wolverine and if possible bring him to the transformation facility. If the latter is found to be undoable he is due for retirement."

"On my way sir."

"And you Rasputin. Same object but different subject. Find me Rogue."

"As you command, sir."

After the officers had left, the man once again looked out through the window pondering if they will succeed. When he noticed the houses burning and the camp just two blocks from where he was, the camp that would have made Hitler proud he felt ashamed. Ashamed over what he had become. He considers denying it all but can't help but asking himself the nagging questions.

"Did I choose something I could regret? Did I do something I should regret?" He immediately regrets the questions because deep down, he knows that the answer was yes.

"Is this the place I used to call Fatherland?" Yes, but it was his doing and it has been twisted. Not Magneto's. Not Xavier's. Not the X-men. His fault. It was his fault that America has become the twisted image of Nazi Germany. And he was too much a coward to try to change things. This man would just be branded "mutant-friendly" and executed without a trial.

With that, Robert Kelly left his office for the day knowing that Wolverine and Rogue soon will be either his agents or dead. The thought did nothing to alleviate his guilty conscience.

Robert Kelly wearily made his way homewards, passing countless of security zones on his way. Not really countless but it feels that way when you have to verify the electronic id-card against how your fingerprint, DNA-signature, the look of your iris and/or the makeup of your blood is every time you move from one zone to the other. Three zones can then be a nightmare. More zones then that and one is speaking of the circle of hell Dante forgot to write about.

Still worse if one happened to have a certain political power. To the security forces that was. The average Joe Public wasn't aware of how much power he really has. For people like that though, the security procedures were even more thorough if such a thing could be imagined. Not many people were in category five, that was for people with the most sensitive knowledge and thus with the necessity of the utmost in security, but Robert Kelly was one of the very few. There were almost only people high up in the ranks of the military there and a couple of genetic specialists. In New York, there were only five people all in all. Robert Kelly, Moira McTaggert, Paul Derret, Valeri Cooper and Henry Gyrich. All involved in fighting the mutant menace in one way or the other.

"A fight we're losing" Robert thought to himself. And not because the mutants were stronger. Sure, their powers could be real intimidating and lethal but modern technology could come up with defenses against them all and had done just that as well. It was just that...how do you fight against nature? For every mutant that was terminated at least one or two new were born or their powers manifested themselves. All implications of mutant registration and termination hadn't been thoroughly thought through back when the laws were passed, Robert admitted. In hindsight they should have. It was blatantly obvious when you come to think about it and was not just letting your fear and paranoia rule the process of creating new laws. The futility of a new sort of "final solution" was just mind numbing. You could just as well try to empty the pacific from water by drinking it up.

Still, now ten years later and they were still trying. One would think that people would have noticed by now that the numbers of mutants weren't decreasing, but no. There was at least some ten retirements a day in New York only and that figure has been pretty constant since the law was passed.

"Sigh. Even if I dared to try to remove those laws again, I don't have the strength anymore. I'm not young and the last ten years has aged me more than that. I'm too old for this." With a resigned sigh he got out of the car and climbed the stairs to his apartment. The apartment that was his lifeline together with his wife Sharon and 14-year old daughter Michelle. The job of being "official mutant hunter" was draining and without some semblance of normalcy at home he would have been six feet under already. But he was always filled with such a shame whenever he came home and saw them. Because he was constantly lying to them over what he does for a living. The Senator title had been long since lost and he had managed to convince them that he got tired of life in the politics and was now just happy having an ordinary job, everything to keep up the facade that he was not directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people, mutants and ordinary people getting caught in the crossfire or were mistaken for being a mutant.

But today the apartment was empty. Sharon and Michelle were doing something downtown but he'd be damned if he could remember what. But an evening with the apartment all to himself was rather pleasant, as long as he knows it was just temporary. This, he decided, would be an evening just watching TV. As long as nothing cuts of the power with happened with monotonous regularity. The news barely mentioned the demise of Storm. The general public as well as the reporters had become jaded. The news of yet another mutant retirement wasn't really news anymore. It was expected so in most cases the media didn't even bother to report it. Only when high-profiles such as Storm, Cable, Jean Grey or Shadowcat were retired it was mentioned and then just barely with a passing comment between the sport results and the weather. Some oldies movie was shown afterwards. Certainly not the best movie ever made but a good way to wind down from work. It worked excellently because he had dozed of before the first commercial.

Suddenly, he was woken up by the phone. Groggily he rose to answer, "Robert Kelly."

"Oh, thank God you were home Robert."

"Sharon? What's wrong?"

"Come down to the police-station immediately. I...I can't tell you over the phone." The voice strained.

"On my way."

Thirty minutes later he had managed to get to the police-station and found where in that place Sharon was. She was red-eyed from crying and gave him a massive hug before starting to cry again.

"Sharon? What's wrong? Where's Michelle?"

"She...she...she's down in the morgue. She was retired an hour ago."

"What? She's not a mutant." He cried, eyes widening.

"Sure she was Mr. Kelly." A figure walked to him, holding a clipboard.

"And who are you?"

"One of the police-men that were sent to that restaurant your daughter so kindly lit on fire. Well, one mutant less to cause trouble. Which I'm sure you approve of."

"What the hell are you talking about? It's my daughter that's dead!"

"Not dead. We prefer retired. One heck of a difference, don't you agree boss?"

"Boss?"

"Sure. I'm part of the Mutant-hunter division. You're the highest ranking officer there."

"Robert? What's he talking' about?" Sharon asked tearfully. Her hands began to shake under the stress.

"Nothing."

"Oh, so Mrs. Kelly didn't know. Me and my big mouth."

"If my husband won't tell me, why won't you?"

"Sure ma'am. I'm pretty sure you've got the gist of it already. Yah see, your husband here is the in charge of the policemen responsible for retiring mutants."

Realization dawned upon man that's Sharon Kelly and threw herself against her husband, kicking and hitting him.

"You murderer! You killed our daughter!" Robert Kelly didn't do much to defend himself; he merely tried to avoid being hit too hard. The police man managed to drag Mrs. Kelly away from him.

"Robert" she pleaded, "please tell me this man's lying."
Now that the truth already had been spilt, Mr. Kelly found that he couldn't look his wife in the eyes and realized that he was silently admitting to his guilt. Mrs. Kelly at that first seemed unnaturally calm, just looking him in the eye asking "Where do you have your swastika Robert?" then she said suddenly; becoming frantic. Yelling at the top of her lungs, she grabbed his arms. "You'll burn in hell for this you bastard!" She ran away in blind fury, tears dripping down her face.

Robert Kelly tried to run after his wife, but was stopped by the police officer.

"Let her go." He said calmly.

"She's my wife damn you!" Kelly ordered his face contorted and expressionless.

"Yes and your daughter is down in the morgue after having been retired as a mutant. I know I don't need to tell you what can happen to people thought of as being mutie-lovers. Remember Kenneth Irons just a year ago."

As much as it pained Kelly to admit it, he knew the officer is right. Irons had been a promising district attorney that went, stupidly enough, public with his opinion that even mutants should have the right for a fair trial. He wasn't pro-mutant by any means - just someone that held the banner of human rights high. One night his car exploded when he started it. No one knows exactly who turned his car into a massive ticking time bomb but the general consensus is that it was the "Friendship of Humanity". And the newspapers had not condemned the act. Rather, they had aired the opinion that whoever did it deserved a medal for acting in the nation's best interest. Kelly had heard all about Irons' mishap and secretly admired the bomber on a job well done.

So, he had to keep silent if he wanted to keep his life. Sharon's life was in danger too. The latter one's the most important, he thought, even if she hates my guts now. At least she's alive. That's more than Michelle is, and Michelle won't even get a burial. Another right the mutants don't have anymore. After retirement, their bodies just get cremated. He doesn't know how it works in a crematory so what happens with the ashes; he doesn't know and doesn't care. All he knows is that any proven mutant doesn't get a grave where the relatives and friends could go to mourn their loved ones. The idea is that you're not supposed to mourn retirements - you're supposed to celebrate. In the beginning the city even paid for fireworks to be used the same evening a retirement took place but that became too annoying and expensive in the end. Every night looked like some perversion of the fourth of July. So, now it's settled with just a large display at Times Square. A display that showed the number of retirements up until now. A number that was extremely high and continued to go higher. It was something obscene with flaunting deaths, even if they go under another name, that publicly.

With that thought, Kelly left the police station and headed for home and dreading the fight he knows he's gonna have if Sharon has gone home too.

The time for the next step in his operation had to be set in motion. The mutants, the ones he had loathed over the last several years were finally going to receive the apocalypse they had been demanding for. Kelly's fingers twitched as he pulled out his cell phone and dialed the familiar number.

"Kelly here. Get it going." He said his voice deadly calm. His eyes froze over with hatred.

Meanwhile, somewhere else

"You know Storm was 'retired' later today?" Logan said, lowering his head into his hands. It wasn't much of a question, more of a statement and with a lot of venom in the voice, especially when it spit out the word 'retirement'.

"Yeah, I saw it. On the news and I've also noticed that the number of 'retirements' are slowly increasing. The display has increased by 20 since yesterday." Marie replied leaning over to stroke his back with her gloved hand.

"You okay?" He asked.

"As okay as one can are all things considered. Storm's dead and many of my team are gone as well. My team is not up to much fighting anymore I'm afraid." Marie felt a rush of emotions build up inside her, controlling the urge to unleash hell on to Logan.

"Not much? How much is that?"

"The other people in the team are not fighters so we have to fight in other means. We found this new guy about a week ago, calls himself Cypher, that's something of a computer wizard. We're planning to use him to hack into the city's mainframes to see what we can find."

"Good, good." Marie said, "What about you and your team?"

"You know me. I'm always okay. And the team's holding up surprisingly well considering that Storm was on my team. In fact, we have something planned but you know I can't tell you what in case something goes wrong." Logan said his voice low.

"I know." She nodded in understanding.

"And we found out something else too." He looked deep into her eyes.

"Yeah, what's that?"

"Creed and Rasputin has been sent out to find us. You can take care of Rasputin if he finds you can't you?"

"Yeah." At that, she stops. "Excuse me for a while." She listens intently on her ear piece, her hand held lightly to her ear. Her eyes met his while she listened. "Some news. Cypher's into the police mainframe and managed to eaves-drop on a conversation between Kelly and a 'hunter'. Turns out Kelly's daughter was a mutant and was also retired today."

"Wonder if that's good or bad. Might be a way of taking advantage of it perhaps." He said, adjusting the top button on his uniform and pulling at the base of his black leather gloves.

"Perhaps." Marie was worried, yet she hid her troubled mind from him. The last thing he needed was to focus his attention on her.

Silence reigned for a while until the two old friends reluctantly get ready to leave. They know they have to; otherwise the consequences could be extreme. It wouldn't do anyone any good if the leaders of both resistance teams would be 'retired' the same way.

"You know", she says, "one of these days we should try to kill the leaders of this tyranny state. Kelly, Gyrich, McTaggert. Those people." She suggested, her voice stern and her eyes unwavering.

"What would that accomplish? There are only others too willing to step into their place." He asks her, shaking his head. There were too many important leaders in this whole operation to kill and even if they managed to kill Kelly, someone would instantly replace him and his regime.

"True. But it would show that we do not intend to just be their prey. And if I have to die, I'd rather die fighting for what I believe in instead of just being defensive most of the time." Marie said.

"Good point. But you know that if we do that, we're as good as dead." He told her softly. The thought of losing her once again would kill him.

"We already are dead, Logan. Our bodies just don't know it yet."

"Yeah, guess you're right. Be careful Marie." he says, kissing her quickly and hugging her close before heading their separate ways. Each one was dreading the thought that they may never see each other again.