Authors notes:

Right, I am taking a lot of creative liberties here. This is mostly alternative universe (AU) and I am tweaking a lot of things to my liking. As usual, Marvel and X-men and blah blah and copywrite to their creators. Straight and gay relationships will be a feature of this story. You will probably see some familiar faces that I have taken and recreated a little. (Here's looking at you Hellion, Surge and Anole.)

Anyway, I hope you enjoy and constructive (or destructive) criticism is always welcome.

Currently the story is very much at bare bones status and I know there's a lot of holes in this but if I don't start somewhere, I never will. Enjoy.

-

Logan could sense something wrong. No, not sense ... Smell.

And it smelt like blue, which was, of course, death. Logan couldn't explain this, and probably wouldn't try even if you asked him, but it was true. Death smelt blue. And on this hot, summer's day, the only blue Logan should have sensed was the blue in the sky. But still ...

Death. Logan's nose twitched, his bushy eyebrows furrowing into a knitted frown as he surveyed the crowd in front of him and his fellow X-men. The X-men were raised on a podium receiving some sort of city award for, what, good behavior? "Thank you, freaks, for not destroying our city completely, take this shiny medal." Whatever it was, Logan did not approve nor want the city's fearful excuses. Here! Take this medal so we feel better about ourselves! We're not REALLY segregating the majority of the city's schools from you! We don't REALLY think you're the anti-Christ! Melodramatic? A little. Bitter? Completely. But true? Well... Logan thought so. But, of course, Logan's thoughts weren't really taken into consideration when your leader – currently for far too long, in Logan's opinion – was the Golden Boy Scott Summers. Now, Cyclops (Cyke to his enemies.. Or Logan) was a good leader, in all honesty. He had a head for tactics, he was loyal to his friends and was completely devoid of personality; there were no distractions whatsoever. Personally, Logan didn't have any idea what the vivacious, interesting, funny, charming, alluring ... and sexy Jean Grey saw in the man, but either way, they were hitched up and knocked up and whatever else up. Of course, Logan was way, way over that little speed bump. He hardly ever thought of what he'd like to do to Jean, pregnant or not. Especially not when -

Blue.

Logan sniffed again, frowned harder, and cast a hard eye over his teammates, his train of thought changing with the speed of a lightning bolt. Not all of the X-men were there. There was himself, Professor Xavier, of course (who was currently having a warm conversation with Senator Kelly who was handing out the charity medals), Storm, Jean, Scott with Nightcrawler and Hank close by, huddled in the Blackbird aircraft monitoring the entire meeting. And then, spread out in front of them in a wide arc, was a bunch of screaming Americans, some waving STOP THE H8, LET MUTANTS PROCR8 flags, some wearing Spiderman hats and Fantastic 4 tops and one person, fortunately in the back row, wearing a full body Beast costume. Logan hoped to God that Hank could see that through the Blackbird cameras. And, behind the blue costumed freak (as if Logan had the right to call people that, really) was a tall, commanding man with a firm hand on his (son's?) companion's shoulder. A feral snarl rose up in Logan's throat, but he bit it down, not wanting to panic anybody.
The two people there, that was where the smell was coming off. Reeking. Stinking.
"Jean?" Wolverine whispered, or growled quietly. Jean turned to him and tapped her temple quickly, a patriotic grin smoothing her face.
What is it, Logan?" Jean asked him telepathically, her manner not faltering once. The other X-men, aside from Xavier, stiffened slightly. She was broadcasting to all of them. Smart move.
Somethin'... I think, maybe nothin' Wolverine sent back, and then looked towards the two people in the far reaches of the crowd. Logan's eyesight was the best in the group by a long shot, but Wolverine tried as best he could to convey the mental picture to Jean, who he assumed would show the rest. Can ya get a readin' on him darlin'?

Logan didn't have time to register the vaguely annoyed raise of Scott's eyebrows as the response was almost instantaneous.
Nngh, no, I c-can't. Something's blocking me out...
Logan hunched his shoulders, growled audibly and stared out across the crowd again. Something was wrong, it was almost an electric current in the air now. Surely nobody would be stupid enough to attack them here? It was like asking to have your ass kicked, roasted and handed to you. But, Logan supposed, people were pretty damn stupid if you left them to their own devices. But here? Really? With two of the most powerful telepaths on the planet? Unlikely...

Logan was watched the two people now with a steely eye, every movement they made, every breath.

The older man placed his hand on the back of the boy's neck, seemed to push with something.. and even from where he was standing, Logan could see the boy's eyes widen to almost unimaginable widths .. and then the smell, the sense, of that blue death hit Logan so hard he was almost rocked off his feet. Something passed over him like a cold shadow, some force that rattled his bones and caused his flesh to creep all the way around his body. He shuddered, bit his lip and closed his eyes. It was over in seconds, but as he opened them and cast a glance over the rest of the X-men, his mouth tightened into a hard line. The force, whatever it was, was vaguely visible, like a shimmering in the air. And as it passed over his friends – his family maybe – it was as if someone had made copies of them, he saw images of them, transparent, real images of them twist themselves from the body of the real x-men and disappear. As if this was a cheap movie and someone had doubled the person in the same place, lowered the transparency and began messing around with the alignment. That sense of death, blue, was more extreme now than ever before.
Logan knew he had made a grave mistake .. should've trusted his instincts when he had the chance.

The man pushed the boy forwards, Logan barely noticed this because his eyes were locked with the boy's. And what colour were they?
Blue. Of course. And they were dripping with power, light, energy.. sparks flew from his eyes like a firework, blazing blue pools of energy.
"GET DOWN!" Logan bellowed, his adamantium claws unsheathing from his knuckles with a SCHNKT sound, but people could barely hear him over the din the crowd was making. The other X-men looked confused, puzzled .. not enough time, need to move...
"NOW!" Logan saw as the fire in the boy's eyes seemed to change, grow more fierce and then dim. And then, and Logan would later swear he saw this, Scott's face seemed to grow out of the boy's, visor and all, and look directly at Logan. It was the same, cheap, awful movie magic as earlier, the transparent image of his (sort of) friend directly over that boy's face... and then the ghost of Scott's visor began to pulse a threatening red. What seemed to take ages to happen took only a few seconds, but the track of time around them seemed to be disrupted. The boy, with his ghost power hijacking, let out a shrill scream that nobody but Logan heard above the crowd, and then with his head (and Scott's head) raised high, sent a wide arc of ruby red optical beam streaming into the sky. It took people several moments to realise the danger they were in.
And by then it was too late.

The boy, still screaming, seemed to spasm, the man behind him pushing something against his neck again. The optical beam swung downwards so the boy was aiming at the floor in front of him, the beam plowed forwards and destroyed everything in a ten metre radius in seconds. Now people were really screaming. Logan watched, powerless, as the beam cut through a dozen people before focusing right on -
"PROFESSER!" And Logan didn't know if he was screaming or shouting or even thinking. There was no time to react, no time to process... The beam surged forward, and dimly through a red haze, Logan saw a man leap forwards and tackle the Professor from his wheelchair. The beam missed it's target, but didn't stop. The boy's eyes were still wide open. Scott was powerless now, hugging the Professor's body tight to him as he tried to sink into the ground. The beam swung around again, catching Storm in mid flight as she tried to gain some ground, some perspective .. Logan thought he screamed her name but she fell from the sky regardless, a white shape in a red background. Jean screamed and clutched her swollen belly. The boy screamed. Logan screamed and was now pushing through the crowd, who was now, absurdly late, scattering in all directions. His claws were out.

The beam stopped, the boy had dug the heels of his hands into his eyes and even through the now sparse crowd, could see them blistering beneath the stolen power. The man behind him, and Logan could now see him smiling but angry, pushed against the boy's neck again, turned and fled. The boy, that goddamn boy, began to scream again. Logan was ten feet away from him, five now, when he saw Storm's body inside the boy's own, a transparent mess of white hair and electricity.

"NO!" Wolverine bellowed, and made his second mistake. He misjudged, leaped and missed his target, landing on the floor beneath the boy as he rose, graceless, into the air. The screams around him stopped as a few stupid, suicidal people watched the boy's ascension. Lightning poured off of him like drops of water, one bolt striking a man into dust, another ricocheting into a nearby building and exploding into flames. Logan could see Storm, the Ghost Storm, inside the boy's body, screaming in... ecstasy?
JEAN! GET THE KID DOWN NOW! But Jean was not responding, and as Logan turned towards her, he could see she was pulling Scott to his feet, trying to check on the perhaps injured Professor; a lightning bolt from the boy exploded towards the group. Logan stared helplessly but the jolt hit an invisible force and exploded into fireworks around Jean's telekinetic shield. She faltered, swayed, and fell into Scott's awaiting, trembling arms.

Logan pulled himself to his feet, tried to jump and catch the boy's dangling, sparking feet but missed by inches, breaths. The boy screamed again, a piercing sound that made Logan's balls almost retreat into his body, and the air around him pulsed with thunder. Logan was knocked to his feet again.
And then the air stopped thrumming with that weather power. The boy began to fall and as Logan raised his claws to (what, Logan, you gonna stab the kid? That what you gonna do?) stop the boy, he saw a familiar but unexpected face.
(Colossus?!)

The boy's skin melted into metal as he hit the floor with a terrible crack, and from the dust that followed, stood the swaying attacker, the steel skin vanished.

"Bad day for you bub," Logan muttered quietly, gliding along the floor towards the figure, claws out, ready to strike -
"PLEASE GOD NO MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP," the boy bellowed, screamed, roared as Logan got close and the Wolverine actually stopped, his claws held out stupidly in front of himself. He faltered, almost tripped, and looked upon the boy. Blood covered his body, streaming from his ears, his mouth... his eyes?! He took a lurching step towards Logan before falling to the floor. Logan didn't move a muscle, his eyes wide. He felt Jean and Xavier in his head, asking him what was wrong, telling him what to do.. but he couldn't move.

The boy's eyes. Bleeding. Those blue eyes, bleeding. That POWER, bleeding!
The boy rose his head, stared at Logan.
"Run, you fool. It's a trap." And then he exploded.