The X-men took in a mysterious one-armed teenager, whom they met on a mission against the brotherhood of mutants. Suffering a severe amnesia, the X-men nurtured, protected and tried to help the boy to remember his past. Little though did they know about the new menance in connection with the boy and that is crying for total annihalation for both mutants and humans.
The Rescue
"RUN, KID RUN!"
Marie, alias Rogue, dashed through the forest closely followed by Wolverine and Iceman. Behind them were barking shepard dogs with guards armed with M16 rifles, who were shooting at them. The bullets were dropping like rain drops flying horizontally. Luckily, Iceman freezed them before they could reach their target.
"That stupid Logan..."
Marie was remembering the events that led up to this point. The team, that is Storm, Cyclops, Iceman, Wolverine and herself were sent on a mission to retrieve vital information about a possible new biological weapon the brotherhood were researching along with a renegade human faction. Storm and Cyclops distracted the front guards and then fell back to their jet, while Rogue, Wolverine and Iceman slipped in unnoticed. They successfully sneaked their through the facility into the server room, where the info was kept. After Iceman hacked and downloaded the files, all three of them was about to sneak back out when Wolvie slipped and activated the metal detector causing the alarm. After that Marie could not remember how long she had run with the disc in her hand. Meanwhile Storm showed up to cover them with a force of wind and mist, while Iceman continued to throw ice blocks at their chasers. It stopped them effectivly, though it did not help to stop the oncoming reinforcements. They both signaled Wolverine and Rogue to continue running to the jet, while they tried to hold them back. Both nodded and continued to run on the oncoming jet. Cyclops opened the ramp, allowing Rogue and Wolverine to enter. Both collapsed and caught for air, when they were safely inside.
"Heard again that the party was your work."
Cyclops meant Wolverine with that.
"Shut up. One-eye"
Wolverine retracted his claws though leaving the middle one out to show it to Cyclops. Both of them were still friendly enemies even after the many missions that they both went through. Most of the time though it was funny to see them fight all the time. Marie could not hold her smile when she noticed something. She took out her small binoculars from her belt and focused on that perticular something. She let her jaw down in shock. There was a crawling boy, in wet clothes, blood coming out from every whole of his body. His left arm bled horribly and his right arm was reaching out for the jet, signaling for help. Behind him, were their chasers again.
"Logan, Scott look there!"
Both X-Men turned their attention to the girl.
"What is it, kid?"
"Logan, we've gotta help him!"
Logan took the binoculars while Scott zoomed in with his onboard camera.
"Its too dangerous to get him now!"
Wolverine nodded in agreement to Cyclops's comment.
"He's right. That boy's got his time."
Marie was petrified by their attitude.
"Hey, Weren't we supposed to be GOOD guys, you know! Fight the oppressers, save the weak!"
Cyclops turned around.
"She's got a point, Logan!"
"Shut up. Even you said that it was impossible to help him now!"
"I just said it was too dangerous, and Storm and Iceman are going to be OK, so?"
Wolverine looked back at Marie, who kept staring at him hoping to change his mind. Logan sighed.
"Oh, hell. Cyclops fly right over him!"
"Roger that!"
Marie was relieved that he decided to save him. Logan went back and pulled out a rope from the equipment locker. He gave one end to Rogue to fastend it on something, while he tied himself with the other end. Then he jumped off the jet and ran to the boy. The boy already collapsed on the ground due to his excessive blood loss, when Logan reached him.
"Man, what happend?"
Wolverine found a lot of cuts and bruises all around his body, leaving him to suspect that they were leftovers from an epic battle. Anyways analysis can wait later. Wolverine grapped his lifeless body and clung to it. The jet already flew past above him, taking the rope with him. While Wolverine was waiting for the rope to pull it with him, many more shepards and guards were approaching him.
"Come on, come on come on..."
A dog was about to jump on to him, as the rope pulled him and the boy skywards. The guards kept shooting at him but soon gave up, when the jet disappeared in the mist. As soon as the jet was set on autopilot, Rogue and Cyclops slowly pulled in Wolverine and the boy. Storm and Iceman were joining them as Wolverine and the boy were savely inside the jet. Rogue and Cyclops were immediatly giving the bleeding boy first aid.
"I'm telling ya Bobby, you gotta lose some weight, when you want to keep flying with me!"
Storm had a hard time keeping herself and Iceman in the air. Iceman had gained tremendious weight when he joined the X-Men team.
"By the way, where did you guys pick him up? And what happened to him?"
Nobody did answer her cause they were too busy treating his wounds.
Far away from the incident on the island headquarters of the brotherhood of mutants, sat Erich Lensherr alias Magneto bored on everyday life reading the newspaper while letting the 4 ironballs playfully swinging around. His constant battle with the X-Men let him sometimes to wonder if he had actually done something else than plotting the destruction of humankind and the elimination of Charles's children. Mystique, a life long associate of Magneto entered his room. Her slender and silent walk was hardly noticable but Magneto knew her long enough to remember that kind of walk.
"The experiment has escaped..."
Magneto put down his newspaper and sat up straight.
"Where they there too?"
"Yes, Charles's children contributed to the whole mess."
Magneto sighed and shook his head.
"Charles, Charles, Charles... Always sticking your nose into other's business..."
He then stood up and walked towards the door.
"Come then... We must prepare ourselves for our next move. I think that it would be a big surprise for my old friend..."
The 4 ironballs dropped on the floor as the door to Magneto's office closed behind them.
Back at Westchester, New York at Xavier's School for the Gifted and Headquarters of the X-Men, Dr. Jean Grey was preparing a set of infusions for their newcomer. The boy was lying on the examination bed, wired up with many pads connected to an EEG (ElectroEncephaloGram), EKG(ElectroKardioGram), an I.V. and a huge bandage for the missing left arm. Dr. Grey was concentrated on injecting amoxcillin (an antibiotic) into a one litre-Sodium Chloride I.V. when the doors opened and a familiar sound "rolled" into the room.
"Hey Professor..."
The Professor moved his chair to the bed.
"How is our patient, Jean?"
Jean walked to the bed with the new I.V.'s on her hand. She explained the facts to the Professor as she hung up the new medicine.
"Well, good thing was that I was able to restore his vital functions even with that extreme blood loss. Bad news is that he went into a coma. I need to make some more tests untill I can come up witha definite diagnosis."
The professor kept examining the lifeless face of the boy.
"How are the others?"
"They are waiting for you for the debriefing... But they should be fine, even after that..."
Jean almost forgot that the professor was more interested on the mental state of his team than on the facts. It was one of the qualities that make him a wise and respectful leader.
The Professor turned around and headed for the door.
"We should wait for debriefing untill you are done with the tests. I will be in my office."
Jean nodded. She continued her work on the boy as the doors were closing leaving her alone with her patient. While she was adjusting the vital signs machine, she carefully examined the boy's face. It looked like that he was crying even in his coma. She carefully carressed his face with her hand, wondering who or what did this to him.
The next day in the briefing room, the X-Men gathered around for the debriefing from the last mission. The professor and Jean haven't showed up yet, leaving the rest of the X-Men wondering what would take them so long.
"I hav heart tat u almost faint cause of the blood."
Kurt Wagner alias Nightcrawler pointed out to Rogue.
"Kurt, now is not a good time for this."
Her voice was almost a bit bitchy.
"Sorry, tought tat u guys should live up for a moment. I mean he is stabil u know."
Due to his german accent Nightcrawler sometimes slipped back to german, when one: things get to hot, two: he does not know the words in english. The others weren't more in a different mood than Rogue. Scott sighed around, Logan kept moving his leg up and down, making Scott almost taking down his visor while looking at him. Ororo kept playing with her fingernails and Bobby made ice and let it melt on his hand again. Finally, everyone woke up from their day-dreams when the Professor and Jean entered the room.
"Sorry for the delay, but I just finished to go through the files on that disc."
The Professor activated the projector showing them the files.
"Our suspictions were proven. Magneto and the renegade faction were indeed researching some kind of biologial weapon. Similarities with the Weapon X program Logan went through were none. This should be somekind of a new type of supermutant or whatever it is."
Logan showed interest, one of the rare things on most mission debriefings.
"What do you mean a new type of supermutant or whatever...?"
The Professor clicked on his remote to show the contents of the other files.
"We can't say for sure now. These are test data of various exposures to many hazardous substances to a subject. Heat, chemicals, radioactivity. Whoever the subject was, went through one of the most dangerous tests for an organism."
The Professor clicked on to show various reports and pictures. Rogue looked away because the gore was more than she could take. The pictures show various agressive animals, tattoed large humans, some of them with a totally deformed body, others even without a head.
"There were also some psycological reports on the test subject. The pictures you see here are the "remains" of test enemies on the test subject. There were also some psycological reports on the test subject. They say that the subject was mentally a bit unstable, mostly using agressive force on the test enemies. To be honest, this is not some supermutant or anything. This is just a monster."
Scott, second in command of the X-Men, went ahead to tackle the future plans into the discussion.
"So, what should we do about it now?"
"To be honest I really don't know, but something like that is too dangerous to exist in our world. Even Magneto and the humans have difficulty to control it..."
Logan cut in.
"Basically what you mean is that we should kill it or whatever it is..."
The Professor confirmed Logan's comment
"I really don't like the fact that we have to destroy life but in times like this it would be the only option for now. We should now look for possibilities were they should relocate. After our break-in I hardly believe that they would be testing at the same site again."
They all nodded, believing that the debriefing was over. For Rogue though it was not over yet. She had another thing on her mind.
"How is he?"
"Rogue, I think Jean can explain it to you better than me."
Jean took the remote and opened a different file.
"OK, then. The boy himself, Asian, about 178 cm and 70 kg, he had a lot of cut wounds around his whole body. The remainder of the left arm showed clean edges, letting me believe that it was cut off as well. But now comes the interesting part. I took an MRI and it showed something strange on his remaining left arm."
She pointed on a dense part of his left arm.
"That part here seems to proliferate independantly from the rest of his body. It seems like a regeneration. Maybe it could be some mutation like Logan's healing ability. I will have something definite once I get the results from the blood sample I took. Right now, he is still in a coma, but alive and well for now."
Rogue was relieved. She was happy that someone she saved was still alive. Scott had something to add though.
"Could there be any connection with the boy and that sick research organization."
"I don't know. But even if there were I don't think that he would be our sick superkiller mutant. I think we'll know more when he wakes up."
Suddenly something on Jean's waist began to beep. She took that gadget and looked at it briefly. Then she turned back her attention to the group, with more cheerful news.
"Our patient is awake..."
His eyes could not see clearly yet. All that he saw was a bright white light with some unclear shapes. His hearing and smell were the only senses that worked so far. Otherwise he felt horrible, lethargic and dead basically. Soon he heard something slide to the side and many different steps echoed through the room. Some of the group should be female too, the different sound of the steps, the nice smell. Along one of them someone smelled like beer and cigar. His eyes now created a new picture of a head just above him along with other different heads on the rim. The head began to talk.
"Hello, how are you feeling?"
He heard what the woman said though his brain could not decrypt the question yet. He was just too tired. The woman tried something else.
"My name is Dr. Jean Grey."
All that he could take up was the last part.
"Dr. uhnnn JJJ Jean Grey..."
"Yes, that is me. What is your name?"
"Na ...Name?"
"Yes, what is your name?"
It was a question that left him wondering if he actually had one.