Rex woke up in a warehouse. He got to his feet and tested his ankle.

"It's fine. It was only a sprain so be gentle with it." instructed a redhead.

Rex nodded and sat on a crate.

"So what is this place?" asked Rex.

Cian woke up just as Rex posed the question. He pulled himself to his feet and explained as quickly as he could. Logan wandered over and dumped some toast on his lap.

"Thanks."

"Don't. It's from Maria." growled out the Canadian.

Cian shrugged and glanced over to look at the short teen. His yellow eyes were flickering around the base and his short brown hair stood up in spikes.

"So what can you do?" asked Cian.

"I can turn into a wolf and become invisible. I had a lotta fun on April Fool's Day." grinned Rex. "But I also adapt to survive."

"Codename?"

"Lupo. It's kinda like Lupine which means wolf-like."

"Cian O'Malley."

The other members of the X-Unit and X-Men were introduced. Rex grinned at them all. Logan offered him the keys to the last vehicle. Rex's jaw dropped when he realised it was a Lamborghini Aventador, his dream car.

"Th-thanks."

Logan shrugged. "I've got too much money and now I can spend it."

"We've got training today!" called Scott.

"No we've not!" replied Cian. "There's a lot of suspicious activity in South Manchester. I think we should check it out."

"Maybe but I'm senior to-"

Cian sprang to his feet, his claws on display. Bobby and Nicky got to their feet, ready to cool both the optic blasts and the fire that could erupt.

"You'd better not be about to say that you're senior to me. I'm the leader of the X-Unit and this is our city and our country! There isn't a Brit among you!"

"I'm older than you and I've led more people on riskier missions!"

Cian spat at Scott's feet. "Bullshit! It wasn't risky then, us fighting for our lives with next to no training against our former mentor?!"

"We've saved politicians and dignitaries!"

Cian narrowed his eyes and icily said, "Fine. Go ahead. Train the X-Men. They're your team. But… I don't answer to you and I never will. So I'll take the X-Unit to South Manchester and we'll investigate it. Get your weapons!"

The X-Unit started to get to their feet.

"Stay where you are." ground out Scott. "We need to train."

Cian barked out, "I gave you an order!"

Nicky grabbed her bow and arrow and tossed Rex a crossbow.

"Can you shoot?"

"I took archery lessons."

Nicky glanced at Cian and shrugged. "That's gonna have to be good enough."

The X-Unit piled into two vehicles, Cian's Freelander and Mickey's Kuga. Logan watched them go and glared at Scott.

"What's your problem?" spat Scott.

"I ain't trainin'." scowled Logan as he sat on a crate.

Meanwhile at the warehouse...

Explosion and Sensor parked the cars and the X-Unit disembarked.

"I assume we have a plan." said Icestorm.

Hydra glared at her. Explosion rolled his eyes and transferred his hammer from hand to hand.

"Of course. Don't I always?"

"No."

"Shut up Chrome."

Chrome smirked but shut up.

"The plan is this. Icestorm, get us in. I'll tell you the rest of the plan when we're inside."

Icestorm nodded and crouched next to the door. Within seconds the lock was picked and the door swung open.

"Where did you learn to do that?" asked Toxin.

Icestorm said dryly, "I have a lot of relatives who are inside for lock-picking."

Toxin nodded and followed the others inside. It was dimly lit inside with dozens of corridors branching off in every direction.

"It used to be a factory." explained Explosion. "Now it's disused."

There was a clang that echoed throughout the halls. The X-Unit tensed and glanced around.

"What was that?" hissed Hydra.

"A mutant. There's a lot here." murmured Sensor. "What's the plan?"

Explosion growled out, "Icestorm and Lupo, head up that thingy there."

"That thingy's a production line." muttered Chrome.

"Whatever! Climb up it and follow it. You two are ideally designed to spy. If you see an MRG or Brother take them down if you can. If it's going to cause suspicion, don't. Right now, they don't know we're here and I'd like to keep it that way."

Lupo clambered up the ladder onto another horizontal one. Some parts were solid before breaking off into rungs. He muttered under his breath as he slipped. Icestorm on the other hand took a running jump, bounced off the opposite wall and grabbed hold of the outer line of the ladder. She swung herself up and grinned at him.

"Piece of cake. Now we just have to keep our balance, suss out the place and not get spotted. What could be easier?"

Lupo snickered. Down below Explosion was outlining the rest of the plan.

"Sensor, Hydra, I want you two to find the centre of this shit hole. Shadow you're coming with me. Chrome, Toxin, you two are coming with me as well. We'll take down as many as we can, silently Chrome. Then we'll find Sensor and Hydra and try to cause some serious injury before Shadow gets us outta there."

They nodded and split up.

Explosion called, "Icestorm! You just gonna stand there?!"

Icestorm smirked and replied, "I'm gone."

Explosion hurried away. Icestorm sprang from rung to rung, hugging the wall. Lupo followed her, keeping quiet until he caught a scent with his sharp nose.

"Icestorm! Stay low. There's people about."

Icestorm flashed him a grin and drew herself into the shadows. Two men were stood in the corridor below them. One of them was built like a tank and the other was slim with brown hair.

"Why do they want to kill little kids, though?" asked the tank.

Icestorm frowned and edged closer. The slim one rolled his eyes. Clearly this conversation had been had before.

"Because they're human."

"I got a nephew who's human. He's real sweet."

"Look, Wynne, I don't know how to put this any other way. Remember the kids that beat the shit outta you? The kids that wouldn't leave you alone until you had to make them?"

Wynne, the tank, nodded slowly. He opened his mouth to form another question but the slim one cut him off.

"The kids are just going to grow into those. It's more mutant haters, more murderers whose only aim is to kill you and your children. It isn't difficult to understand!"

Wynne scowled. "Don't call me stupid Madrox! I'm jus' saying. It's real hard to hurt kids."

Madrox glared at him. "C'mon. We need to check the south side."

The two of them walked away. Icestorm looked over at Lupo. Together they crept along the ladder to another room. It looked as though it was a planning room. There was a map and several people discussing.

"Go down there and look at that map." hissed Icestorm.

"They'll see me!"

Icestorm looked at him like he was stupid and snarled back, "You turn invisible, don't you?"

"Oh yeah."

Meanwhile, in another part of the warehouse, Sensor and Hydra were creeping along a wall.

"Well? Are we nearly there?" she hissed.

Sensor growled out, "Almost! Just shut up, OK? I've found the centre and I need you to concentrate on contacting the others."

As Hydra opened her mouth to speak Icestorm's voice crackled through the comm link.

"When you two have finished sniping at each other, I and Lupo have been working."

Explosion said, "What've you got?"

"We've found out that they've planned to attack a school. They also know somebody's here."

"How?!" hissed Toxin.

"Madrox and a guy called Wynne discovered that the door we entered by was open. Last time they'd checked, it was locked. Three minutes later they worked out that someone was in. We've got all the details about the attack but we need to get out of here, now." stressed Lupo.

"Got it. We'll meet you at the door in five minutes. Sensor, Hydra, do you copy?" muttered Explosion.

"We copy."

Five minutes later the seven met outside the door. There were voices and footsteps running.

"Shit!" cursed Chrome.

Icestorm tried the door but it was locked.

"Pick it!"

"No time." said Icestorm. "By the time it's open they'll be here, we'll be captured and done for."

"Stand back." said Explosion stonily.

The other six jumped out of the way as he charged his hammer. The red light began to glow around the hammer as he slammed it onto the door. The resulting bang deafened them but they ran outside and sprang into the cars. The Brotherhood and MRG rushed out. Projectiles were thrown at them as they screeched round the corner.

"That was close." mused Hydra.

"Too damn close." growled Sensor.

When they arrived back at the X-warehouse Rex and Nicky rapidly explained to the X-Men what happened.

"So we overheard Madrox and Wynne talking about attacking a school. We moved on a bit and found a tactical room. Lupo turned invisible and did his thing."

Rex grinned and took over. "I crept over and looked at the map. They'd marked a high school and written a date on it. For Friday next week. They were talking about fire-power and how easy it would be to send in a couple of hard-hitters and have the job done with. They're planning to annihilate it."

"Then we'll stop them. With or without the X-Men." said Cian.

"We'll stand with you." Scott muttered. "We can't let them do that."

OK, this has been completely romance-free apart from the RoLo. So… next chapter's got a little romance!