Immediately following the bright flash of white light, Beast, Wolverine and Colossus experienced a strange sense of weightlessness as their vision filled with a cascading stream of what appeared to be stars. None of the X-Men could see either of the others, and what little sound there was was muffled, as if they were hearing it from below the surface of a deep lake. The unnatural amount of static was also present, only now it grew to the almost painful feeling of pins and needles all over their bodies. The weightlessness continued, although it seemed as though they were traveling quite fast due to the countless bright spots racing downward all around them.
Although it seemed to the mutants an eternity, the experience only lasted but a fraction of a second, and as a white light once again filled their vision, accompanied by the static crackling they heard prior to their departure, the travelers once again felt the effects of gravity, and soon found themselves in a dark, musty basement-like room. The walls about them were bare concrete and the ceiling was low, a solitary lightbulb hung unlit from the center. As their eyes adjusted to the darkness, the three men came to a horrid realization almost simultaneously: They were not on Muir Island.
"What... what happened?" Colossus was the first to speak.
"I'm not sure..." Beast answered distractedly as he spun around on his heel, taking in what little there was to see.
"Somethin's screwed up, that's fer sure." Wolverine said as he sniffed the air and clenched his fists, preparing for something bad to happen.
"Fascinating!" Beast said finally as he eyed the platform they were standing on. "It's a teleporter, although very different in design from the one I've constructed. From the appearance of this device's display screen, it was built by English-speaking people. That, at least, should be a good indication that we are not too far from home."
"Yeah, yeah," Wolverine muttered, "Let's just figure out where we are for sure before we go gettin' too comfortable. There's a door at the far end of the room with a light creepin' in through the bottom, so let's start there..."
Wolverine froze in place and put a finger to his lips, signaling the other two to be quiet. Beast, like Wolverine, could detect the sound of footsteps hurrying down a set of stairs with his super-sensitive hearing. Soon afterwards Colossus heard the footsteps as well as they drew nearer, towards the door Wolverine had mentioned moments before.
"Hide!" Beast hissed, but the burly Colossus narrowed his eyes at him, non-verbally asking Beast, "Where?"
The sound of footsteps stopped just beyond the door, only to be replaced by a muffled, "One, two, three!"
The door at the far end of the room crashed open as two middle-aged men came charging through, one armed with a pump-action shotgun and the other with a submachine gun. Wolverine growled and extended his long, adamantium claws and leapt forward to attack. The man with the shotgun raised his weapon and fired directly into Wolverine's torso, knocking him backwards from his mid-air lunge. Wolverine rolled across the floor until he hit the adjacent wall, leaving a trail of blood behind him.
Beast, with his lightning-fast reflexes, sprung sideways as soon as the first shot was fired, landing behind Colossus, who flexed his enormous frame and transformed instantly into an impenetrable organic steel. Startled by the sudden movement, the man with the submachine gun opened fire on Colossus, emptying an entire magazine at the shiny giant to no avail. After shrugging off several rounds from the submachine gun, Colossus charged at the two men, taking several rounds to the head and chest from the shotgun, which did nothing to slow him down. Terrified, the two men dropped their weapons and turned to flee the room, only to feel the iron-grip of Colossus' hands on the backs of their necks. Colossus yanked the two men off their feet and slammed their backs to the nearest wall.
"Logan, are you alright?" the big man yelled over his shoulder as Beast scrambled over to attend to the wounded mutant.
"Yeah, I'm good." came the weak reply, much to the surprise of the two gunmen.
With an arm around Beast's shoulders, Wolverine struggled to his feet, his white t-shirt torn apart at the chest and soaked in blood. His flesh, however, seemed untouched, as if he were simply wearing the shirt of another man who had been shot at point-blank rang in the torso.
The gunmen looked over Colossus' shoulders with disbelief as they watched a man who by all rights should be laying dead on the floor get up and slowly walk towards them. Their astonishment soon turned to fear, however, as Colossus turned his attention back to the two of them, his metallic face twisted with anger. They felt his grip on their throats tighten and began to struggle for air when Beast interceded:
"Peter! Stop!" Colossus relaxed a little and turned to address the fury blue thing.
"But why?" he asked, " They are obviously trying to kill us!"
"He's right, Pete," Wolverine broke in, "we'll probably need these punks to explain what's going on here." Wolverine put a hand on the big Russian's shoulder, and Colossus released his grip on the men, letting them fall to the floor, gasping for air.
Beast approached and crouched down so that he was at eye level with the gunmen, clearly making them uncomfortable. "Who are you two, and why did you attack us?"
The two men looked at each other, asking with their eyes wether they should answer. Finally with a nod, the older-looking man spoke up. "My name is Doctor Anthony Markell, and I attacked because I thought you were... them."
"Them?" Beast asked, his eyebrows raised in curiosity, "Who do you mean by 'Them'?"
"The Combine," Markell replied, "We thought you were the Combine entering our facility through the teleporter. I can see now that you're not, but if that's true then who - or what - the hell are you?"
"We are the X-Men." Beast said proudly, expecting recognition to creep into their faces.
"X-Men?" Markell said, glancing over at his companion, "I'm not familiar with 'X-Men'."
The three mutants looked at each other, then returned their gaze to the two men. "The X-Men are an elite team of mutants who have devoted their powers to promoting peace between humans and mutants." Beast explained. "You see, most of our kind are labeled as dangerous and savage, but we strive to educate mankind otherwise."
Beasts words seemed to only confuse the men further, their faces contorted with incomprehension.
Wolverine decided to get more information out of the men and changed the subject, saying, "What is this 'Combine' exactly? Maybe you oughta give the explainin' a shot."
The men's confusion turned to disbelief. "The Combine? You honestly don't know who the Combine are? Just where exactly did you three teleport from?" the younger man was the one asking the question, rubbing his hand over his nearly-crushed throat.
"Well, actually, we began the teleportation process in upstate New York," Beast answered, "Why? Where are we now?"
"City 17," Markell replied, "located in what used to be known as Eastern Europe. But if you really are from New York, then how do you survive the fallout?"
Fallout... Beast thought to himself, There's no fallout in New York. What is he talking about? It occurred to Beast that they were not on the same page. Neither of these men had heard of the world-famous X-Men, which surprised the three of them. But the two gunmen seemed even more shocked that they had not heard of this "Combine", whatever that was. The way Markell spoke about the Combine led Beast to believe that they were not a friendly bunch.
"Never mind that for now," Beast said to Markell, "Tell me more about the Combine and why this place was renamed 'City 17'. I have a theory, you see, about the nature of our current predicament, but in order to be sure I must know more. When I've learned enough, I'll tell you all you want to know about the three of us."
