Chapter 2: Crimson Knight and the Wolverine
Note: I will be using public identities for characters that do not have a secret identity, once it has been established, but for characters with secret identities, like Wade, I will be separating the identities within the story.
Wade has been active as Crimson Knight now for nearly eleven months and Laura has been gone for two months. It has taken awhile, but he finally has a led on the group that attacked Laura, Cassandra, and him. They call themselves the Facility and they are the ones that created Laura. He was even more surprised when he found out that she was a clone, of a man no less. They have a small operational base in Atlanta that serves as a hunting ground for mutants they use for experimentation. Missing persons has become much easier to track now that the human trafficking rings in Atlanta are on the run from Crimson Knight.
"There it is. It's finally time to start," Crimson Knight says looking down at the building from a nearby roof.
Crimson Knight enters the building from a roof vent. Once he makes it into the building he gets a strange feeling. As he quietly explores the building he sees the signs of battle throughout the building and claw marks in the walls and bodies. At first he thought it was Laura but these marks were different, they were in pairs of three not two like Laura's. He hears a gun cock behind him. "Shit! I got distracted!" he says to himself and starts to turn around. He hears what sounds like a grunt and metal colliding then the sound of a deep exhale and blood hitting the ground.
Crimson Knight turns quickly, but what he sees he didn't expect. He sees a short man, about 5'3, wearing a yellow and blue costume, impaling a large, heavily armed man in the chest. Crimson Knight stands up quietly as the short man lets the armed man fall to the ground. The short man has three metal claws coming out of each hand. "You didn't have to kill him," Crimson Knight says sternly.
"Look kid, if I didn't he would have shot you. What is a kid like you doing here anyway?" the man says as his claws retract back into his hands.
"I had it handled. He would have got the shot off but my Shroud would have stopped it. I guess you're Wolverine. I don't need you here. I would actually like to have someone left alive that I can question," Crimson tells him.
"Yeah I am bub, but who are you? I don't think we've ever met before today. You learn about me from these jokers?" Wolverine asks.
"Sort of, I'm investigating these people in relation to an attack on three kids two months ago. One of the kids killed the attackers with metal claws like yours except she had two to your three," Crimson Knight tells him walking over to the man Wolverine just killed and goes through his pockets.
"So Laura was here and these guys attacked her. What happened to her and the other kids?" Wolverine asks propped up against a wall.
"Reports indicate that Laura killed them and ran off. The other two kids, whom she had been living with, suffered a gunshot wound to the shoulder and some minor cuts and bruises," Crimson Knight tells him.
"I'm guessing you already talked to the kids?" Wolverine asks.
"Yes, the parents too, they are very worried about Laura and asked me to find her if I could or at least find these guys and stop them," Crimson Knight tells him and stands up. "Great, nothing."
"Well I wouldn't say nothing, I got some information from one of them before they died. If you want it I might be willing to share it," Wolverine tells him with a smile.
"Oh? I could just ask really nicely, but that might draw unwanted attention. So what are your terms?" Crimson Knight says with a sigh.
"Well the place that he told me about is a place a kid your age would fit in pretty well," Wolverine tells him.
"One question for you, to determine if you are friend or foe in the long run. Why are you looking for Laura Kinney?" Crimson Knight asks sternly squeezing the hilt of his sword.
"Easy kid, you wouldn't like what happens after you hit me. I'm just here to help Laura. I want to take her back with me. It's a safe place where mutants can live well and there is a person there that's always helped me even when I gave him good reason not to. I just want to help her, so she can end up better than I have," Wolverine tells him honestly.
"Understood, so tell me where am I going?" Crimson Knights relaxes the grip on his sword.
Wolverine and Crimson Knight talk for a few more minutes about when and where they need to meet up the next day. Crimson Knight is hesitant at first because it requires civilian cloths and he hasn't revealed his identity to anyone outside of his Master Osen, but decides that Wolverine can be trusted.
Wade shows up at the rondevu place the next day and waits for Wolverine to show up. He doesn't seem like the kind of person that would be easy to miss, but he keeps his eye out just in case. Wade eventually spots a man in a white shirt and jacket on pull up on a motorcycle. His shape and size is right, but Wade decides to wait and see if he approaches him and he does.
"Hey kid, so the reports indicated huh?" the man says with a chuckle. "The names Logan by the way."
"Shut up. Let's go. Also, no killing," Wade tells him sternly.
"These people are monsters kid, but I'm not going to make any promises. I'll try not to kill anyone," Logan tells him.
A short while later Wade and Logan arrive at the location Logan learned about yesterday. "Seriously?" Wade asks looking at Logan.
"I told you it was a place you would look more naturally in," Logan tells him.
"Dude it's a Paintball field, most people wouldn't get a second glance here. That's twice as true for an ex-military looking guy like you!" Wade tells him angrily. "Anyway where to now?"
"Oh is that right? Relax kid, I knew you looking into this too and after hearing why I decided to let you help. That's all now let's go," Logan tells with a smirk.
"I don't like being played Logan," Wade says following him closely. "Who are we here to see anyway?"
"The owner of this place is a contact for the Facility. He looks for mutant kids that would be easy targets and passes off the info for big payouts. He's probably not the only one around here that does this either," Logan says.
"Disgusting pieces of shit," Wade says.
"Yeah but what's worse is that the people and community around here doesn't do anything to stop it. I've heard that you are at least trying, so at least there is someone helping kid," Logan says.
"I try. The Atlanta Saints are also helping, but they aren't focusing on just mutants. It's more of all human trafficking," Wade says casually.
Wade and Logan come up to an office in the building. "Okay kid, wait out here. Don't worry I won't hurt him too much. I'll just get the info we need and we can move on," Logan tells Wade and enters the office. Wade can hear a struggle coming from in the room. Three or four people fighting then talking, well more like threatening really, then frantic answers. A few seconds later Logan exits the room. "Let's go kid."
"Wait really? Why did you ask me to come along?" Wade asks as he hurriedly catches back up to Logan.
"Because I wanted to go right to the next step, but that's going to be hard. We need to get a plane. The base is in Texas," Logan says.
"You have no idea how rich I am do you?" Wade asks him pulling out his cell phone and calls a contact. "Yeah Henry, I need some help. Can you please get the plane and meet us at an a small airfield in the area? Please make it discrete and send me the location of the strip."
"Are you serious kid? You have your own plane and pilot? Someone had a hard life growing up," Logan says with a smirk.
After a few minutes Wade gets a text from Henry with an address of a nearby airfield. Wade and Logan ride there on Logan's motorcycle, which is very uncomfortable for Wade as he dislikes motorcycles in general. It only takes them about fifteen minutes to get to the very run down and seemingly abandoned airfield. They get off the motorcycle and go into an old hanger to wait.
"So kid, what can you do?" Logan asks.
"Didn't you do your research?" Wade asks tiredly.
"Yeah I did, but I doubt you have shown everything you can do yet. If I'm going to go into a fight with ya I'd rather know what you can do. So I'll ask again, what can you do?" Logan asks again sternly and with a look in his eyes that makes Wade jump a little.
"Fine, my powers are all magic based. I feed magic into my sword, Olihandrew, which allows me to send the magic outwardly in the form of a few things, like a sonic blast, wide area blast of magical energy, turning my blade into a psionic form, surrounding the blade in a kinetic barrier that sends the energy directly into the target at the point of impact, so basically a dull bladed strike with extra power behind it, and of course I'm a master with bladed weapons, but I prefer a sword. I will likely be able to adapt more powers into Olihandrew eventually, but my soulforge hasn't matured yet. Beyond that my awakening also gave me perfect eyesight, and my shroud. I also gained a slight boost in my physical characteristics, but nothing major. My shroud is a protective barrier, but comes in to layers. The first layer is my armor that you saw me in and the second layer is a barrier that, when activated, is an outward barrier that protects me like a force field. I can manipulate the second layer, but I tend to not use it as it is tiring to use. On top of that I have the ability to close short distances at an insane speed and my max cruising speed is about Mach 2.5. I also have a genius level intelligence, but my specialties are strategy, tactics, and investigation. If I knew any spells I guess I could use those too, but I don't," Wade explains.
"Kid you just gave me your entire resume. You should be more careful in the future. That said, what's a soulforge?" Logan tells Wade.
"It's okay, I can trust you. I can tell that you generally care about Laura despite the fact that most people would consider you an ass. I did some research on you last night as well. Normally when you get involved people end up dying, but after spending a little time with you I don't think you enjoy it. I see you more of a soldier in a war that kills to protect or because it's the right choice at the time. Also, it's not easy to explain what a soulforge is. Just think of it as a generator for magical power that I use to power my abilities," Wade tells Logan.
After about thirty more minutes Henry's plane lands at the airfield and he gets out of the plane. "Hey boss, sorry it took so long, I've got everything cleared we should be able to take off and land at the nearest airfield to your location in Texas, but I'm not sure why you want to go there. There isn't a lot out there, but whatever I'll fly you and your friend wherever," Henry tells them.
"Good bub," Logan says taking a bag off his motorcycle then he walks into the plane and sits down followed by Wade. "Cozy plane kid."
"Henry, please make sure we make the best time possible. We have an appointment that I don't want to miss," Wade tells him.
"Understood sir," Henry says respectfully and goes into the cockpit to start the takeoff procedures.
"Loyal guy, most people that show that kind of respect wouldn't break air traffic laws so casually," Logan says taking a beer out of his bag and opening it.
Awhile later, the plane lands at a small Texan airfield where an old truck is parked. Henry explains that the truck is for them and that the keys are in the ignition. Logan drives while Wade takes shotgun.
"Kid, just be careful. These guys won't hesitate to kill you. Don't drop your guard," Logan tells Wade with a serious tone.
"I'll be fine, so don't worry about me. Just try not to smash the computers before I get a chance to access them," Wade tells Logan leaning up against the passenger side window.
It takes Wade and Logan about an hour to get near the location of the Facility base. Logan takes out his costume and puts it on while Wade's body is covered by a red light and his costume is on. After a short conversion about how to get to the base they head out together taking it slow. They run across a few cameras and sensors that they are able to avoid fairly easy. They eventually find an entrance that isn't guarded and enter the base.
"Alright kid, what do you want to do?" Logan asks.
"Well ideally we should try to find a master terminal with access to all files on the base in terms of what projects they are operating as well as freeing any mutants they have here for experimentation," Crimson Knight says.
"Alright after you kid," Logan says.
They sneak through the facility without too much trouble. They find multiple rooms dedicated to creating living weapons with mutant DNA, but no living or dead mutant or human test subjects until they enter one particular room and Crimson Knight is horrified at the sight. There are serval tables with mutilated mutants lying on tables.
Logan growls and pops his claws. "These bastards went too far here!"
"Logan…I've changed my mind. I'm trashing the place and I'm going to be these people's worst nightmare from today onward," Crimson Knight tells him and walks over to a computer terminal and starts typing on it. It only takes a few moments for him to find the area for active experimentations are conducted. "Alright let's go shut them down. It won't take them long to realize I hacked that terminal." He tells Logan and draws his sword.
*sniff, sniff* "I think they already know kid. Five heavily armed guys with some big guns outside," Logan tells him pointing at the door.
"Yeah, I'll handle that," Crimson Knight tells Logan walking toward the door with Olihandrew's blade glowing blue. As soon as the door starts to slide open Crimson Knight swings his sword sending a large wave of blue energy right into the door way hitting all five men on the other side and destroying the door.
"Damn kid, that's a pretty powerful blast. You may want to be careful or you may end up killing someone," Logan says sarcastically with a smirk.
"I can't control the amount of magic I put into and release from the blast, so I don't kill anyone or I could wipe out an entire town with it," Crimson Knight explains. "As long as I keep myself in check I can prevent most casualties, well from my side anyway."
Crimson Knight and Logan race to the active experiment wing while fighting guards along the way. Crimson Knight sees what they are trying to do, buy time. Are they evacuating? Destroying data? Either way, they need to pick up the pace. After a short fight with the last few guards and some automated defenses Crimson Knight and Logan make it to the active experimentation wing.
"Well this is a surprise, Weapon X welcome to the new Weapon Plus Program!" a voice rings from the walls. "Unfortunately, I doubt we have the capability to capture you and your friend, but at least we can get some good data out of this failed experiment." The voice says as a large abomination, in a vaguely humanoid form, bursts through the nearby wall and into the same hallway as Crimson Knight and Logan. A loud roar comes from the creature and an energy blast comes from the creature's hand and hits Logan, sending him flying backwards into a wall.
Crimson Knight takes action immediately and Blitzes on top of the creature's shoulder and stabs Olihandrew deep into its flesh. The creature let's out a scream of pain as it tries to shake Crimson Knight off of it. The creature grabs Crimson Knight with its other arm and slams him full force into the ground cracking the floor. The creature stomps on Crimson once and gets ready to do it again when Logan drives into its chest and starts slashing at it with loud grunts and roars.
Crimson Knight slowly gets to his feet. "Damnit, that hurt," he says in pain holding his side. He holds his hand out to Olihandrew, still stuck in the creature, and it dematerializes into light and flies toward his hand and reforms in his hand. He jumps at the creature with his blade glowing yellow and he brings the sword down onto the creature with all of his strength causing a lot of damage to the creature's flesh.
"Good job kid! Keep it up!" Logan yells still slashing and cutting the creature.
The creature swings its arms wildly and hits Logan and Crimson Knight knocking them back a little before smashing its arms into the ground creating a shockwave to pushes Crimson Knight into a wall while Logan is able to manage standing. The creature then fires a large energy blast from its mouth at Crimson Knight destroying the wall.
"Kid!" Logan yells toward Crimson Knight then charges the creature using his claws to climb up to its head and tries to stab it but is knocked away before he is able to connect. Logan lands on the ground and charges back in slashing and cutting at the creature.
A blue wave of energy comes from the hole in the wall Crimson Knight was knocked through striking the creature. Crimson Knight stumbles out of the room, through the hole in the wall, holding his side with blood flowing freely from beneath his hand. His eyes are filled with pain and looked drained. "I need to end this now while I can," he thinks to himself and Blitzes over to the creature. He raises his sword over his head and it starts to glow a blinding dark red. He slams the sword down into the creature unleashing a large explosive wave at the point of impact outward. This energy wave tears through the creature's body and all that is left of the creature is a bloody husk.
"Damn kid, you had that kind of power all this time?" Logan asks.
"It's not something I enjoy unleashing. I don't have any real control over it yet," Crimson Knight explains breathing heavily holding his side. "Let's see if they left anything usefully here."
"Hang on kid. You need to treat that injury or you're going to bleed out," Logan tells Crimson Knight pointing at the wound.
"Fine, then we take the hard drives from their computers and we go home," Crimson Knight agrees.
After treating Crimson Knight's injuries the two start looking around the facility pulling out hard drives from computers and taking physical files they find before setting explosives Logan had found, in the armory, around the facility. After they set the timer they leave the facility and start heading back to the truck.
**A few hours later**
Wade comes into his house late at 3:00 AM, he manages to just make it to his room before clasping on the floor with a puddle of blood forming on the floor from his side. Wade tries to get up, but finds his body is not moving at all. "Not good." He tells himself. The last thing he sees in his mind before the darkness fully sets in is Laura and Cassandra.
Wade feels pressure clasping his left hand. "What is that?" he asks himself as he slowly regains consciousness. When he comes too he sees Cassandra's head laying on the edge of his bed holding his hand. Wade looks around and sees it's his room and he is now in his bed. She must have found him. "Shit! Did she call someone? How am I going to explain this?" he thinks to himself. He pokes Cassandra's head. She stirs a bit and her head lifts up.
"Wade! You're awake! You have no idea how worried I was about you!" she shouts at him. "I was about to call our doctor when you didn't improve after the first day, but then you started to get better! Your wounds closed up on the second day, but you didn't wake up."
"My wounds closed up? How long have I been out Cass?" Wade asks as he sits up in the bed with a good amount of pain coursing through his body.
"Yeah they just started healing before my eyes. Wade are you a mutant?" Cassandra asks.
"No I'm not Cass. I promise I'll explain later. How long have I been out?" Wade asks with a bit of a sigh.
"This is the fourth day. I'm just glad you are okay," She leans in and hugs him and Wade hugs back. "You don't have to tell me what's going on if you don't want to, but if you want help I'm here."
"Cass, I'm Crimson Knight, I got these injuries hunting the people that are after Laura. They had this monster in their base they unleased on me and, uh, a friend that was also looking for Laura. We beat the damn but it got a few good shots on us. The guy, Logan, told me about a safe haven for mutants and I promised that if I found Laura I would take her there. I think they'd be able to help her there," he tells her as leans back and exhales.
"Wade I know you love Laura, but you are going way too far with this. You nearly died. I really liked Laura too Wade but is it worth dying for?" Cassandra asks.
"Cass, yeah it's completely worth it. We've had an easy life. Ever since she was born she was treated like a tool. Only her sensei and mother treated her like a human being and she was forced to kill them both. She had to leave her aunt and cousin to keep them safe, so yes it's worth dying to free her from being hunted even if it's just for a moment," Wade tells her.
"I…I didn't know that. She told you that?" She asks.
"No, I found out about it through info brokers, files, and some facility agents I managed to track down. I have a lot of files and hard drives to sort through. I could use your help Cass," Wade tells her.
"Alright I'll help you with the hard drives, but I have a condition. We are partners in this. I'll support you as your tech guru from now on," Cassandra demands.
"Agreed, but you aren't going out in the field with me. As you can see it's dangerous," Wade agrees with a smile.