Chapter 7: "Weapon X Is Ticked"
Kate was pretty well engrossed in her own thoughts and the idea of teaming up with Wade and Clint again — those were always the craziest of missions, if she was being honest — when she and Cassie pulled up to the mansion again, and so she wasn't really paying much attention to the fact that Scott was there — looking annoyed as usual.
"Hey, boss man," Kate said, half-distractedly. "Sorry I'm late — stopped by Clint's place to say hi."
"Yeah, I saw your interview," Scott said. "Or I should say Bobby dragged me in to see your interview. What happened?"
Kate shrugged openly. "Someone cut out the feed, Scott. JJ knew it was going to happen. He was fishing. Guess he figured they wouldn't think he'd try it on me and not K."
"Why in the world would he be fishing for anything about Weapon X?" Scott asked, clearly more concerned about the direction the interview had taken than Kate realized.
"He's gotten his hands on some stuff. Documents, most of it blacked out — he told me when the cameras went off," Kate explained. "He knows there's a story, and he's going after it, and that whole interview was just to see if he was right — because if they blacked him out, it was true."
"I guess I don't understand why he holds such a sudden interest in a group that dealt almost exclusively in using mutants for lab rats," Scott said dryly.
"Seriously? Blacked-out government conspiracy? This is, like, Watergate-level journalistic bait here," Kate pointed out.
"I just didn't think anyone would care, seeing as it hit mutants so hard," Scott said as he relaxed his stance a bit, though he was still frowning Kate's way. "Is he still pushing it?"
"Oh yeah," Kate said. "He's practically drooling over it, Scott. He asked me for help; he wants it that bad."
"Logan won't talk about it, and he'll probably block K too," Scott warned.
"Can't hurt to ask them, though — and it's not like they're the only ones," Kate pointed out reasonably.
"No," Scott agreed. "But they're probably the most publicly known right now, and definitely the most high profile." He paused for a moment and let out a breath he'd been half-holding. "He's never even told me about it. I don't think he told anyone about it — not outside of the basic 'bad things happened' angle. And technically, K hasn't either. She just left clues on where to dig."
"Yeah." Kate matched his sighed-out body language for just a moment as she rubbed the back of her neck before she looked up to meet his gaze. "But here's the thing, Scott. JJ got those documents from somewhere. And you know wherever he got them, it's easier than where we've looked. So anything else he finds? They'll let him find."
"Right, I get that. You're looking at damage control," Scott said with a little nod. "But unless it's going to help mutants now, you probably ought to step back and not poke them. They will be a problem. For all of us."
Kate chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. "That… might be… um. Wade called me."
"Deadpool?" Scott asked with a frown. "What did he want?"
"To help bring Weapon X down and get all the documents JJ could ever want to dump all over the news," she told him honestly.
"Kate ... what … what did you tell him?" Scott asked carefully.
"Just that he could meet me at Clint's so we could plan," she tried to assure him. "Just plan, Scott. I thought you'd like that!"
"You can't get involved with him on something this important," Scott insisted. "He'll just make it worse."
"He's already involved," Kate said, unconsciously straightening up as she came to Wade's defense. After all, even if Wade was absolutely bonkers, Kate really did like him and considered him a friend. "He called me from Canada, Scott. You really want him running around out there without me and Clint keeping an eye on him?"
Scott frowned at Kate for a long moment with his arms crossed. "We don't need that kind of attention right now — not with everything else that's going on."
Kate crossed her arms right back at him and glared for a moment before she let out a breath. "Fine. I'll talk to Deadpool and try to pull it back a bit. But, Scott ... I don't think you can stop this thing. JJ is going to keep digging, and that's going to bring all sorts of attention — whether me and Wade go looking for it or not."
"Don't worry, Scott," Cassie piped up with a small smile. "Clint seemed pretty determined to keep them from being too stupid, together, and despite appearances, he actually knows what he's doing in that regard."
Scott shot Cassie a bit of a dry look but finally let his shoulders drop with a full-body sigh. "Alright. Come on, Cassie — your team's getting ready to run another sim with Logan and K, and I doubt you want to fight them in your nice dress," he said, the beginnings of a smirk creeping back over his expression.
But they had only just come in from the garage when the intruder alarms went off — loud and flashing — and Cassie couldn't help but say, "Looks like I'm fighting in my dress after all."
They could hear the choppers before they could see them, but the disturbing part was that they could see the massive numbers of black-clad soldiers coming in from the trees — thick enough that they seemed to black out all of the underbrush. And they were coming from every direction.
"This is what happens when you out a secret black ops group," Scott said through gritted teeth, a red tinge already forming at the edges of his eyes. "They get mad about it."
"Like I always say — you know you're doing things right when the bad guys are pissed at you," Kate said as she ran back to her car to get the quiver she kept there.
"Then I guess we're always doing things right," Scott replied as the red tinge grew to a glow.
Across the mansion, Jubilee and Noh had been chatting with Logan, Kurt, and K in the living room by a fire as both Elin and Krissy seemed fascinated by the newest little addition to the family. Elin was in K's arms and looking over at Sying with wide blue eyes and her mouth barely parted — just staring at him quietly. Krissy was doing the same, only with the occasional quiet sort of coo like she was trying to get his attention. But Sying seemed perfectly content to play with his mom and dad and not really care about anyone else.
But the peaceful, lazy sort of feeling quickly dissipated when the alarms split the air, and Sying immediately burst into terrified screams, trying to hide his head in his mother's chest with little whimpers between screams that sounded more and more painful with each little breath. .
The girls startled, and Elin more or less buried her face in K's shoulder with her hands over her ears. "What now?" K asked, holding Elin tighter, though Logan and Kurt were already on their feet and looking outside.
When Sying started trying to pull on his mom and it was obvious that he was becoming a super-strong pain, Noh scooped him up so he could beat his little fists against someone who could take it a little better, covering the little guy's ears and wrapping him in a blanket to try and block out the noise as best he could for the little super-hearing half-Kree before he went to join the other two men with a deep frown. "I know those uniforms," he said.
"What's the plan?" K asked, glancing toward Logan — who was already running toward the trees with his claws out.
Kurt glanced back at her before he very carefully readjusted Krissy and held one hand out to Noh, who raised an eyebrow and seemed to understand his intent. With Sying and Krissy in either hand, Kurt then teleported to where K was, and an instant later, the two of them were in K's cottage with the three littlest residents of the mansion.
"NO," K half shouted when she realized what he was doing. "He can't fight them on his own, not with all the crap that's been getting dug up! I need to go back!"
Kurt took a slight step back, eyes wide. "I was simply — we needed to get the children away from them, and my arms were full… I wasn't trying to take you out of the fight," he tried to assure her.
"Fine… hurry back with Annie or someone so I can go help," K said with a clear note of panic in her voice as she set Elin down on a blanket. "Go."
Kurt gently handed her Sying, who was starting to settle a bit without the noise, and then a very scared-looking Krissy, whose tail was twitching and hitting Sying — and distracting him from how upset he was. But when he went to teleport back to the mansion… he couldn't.
"Something is blocking me," he said in a rush of breath.
She looked up at him with wide eyes. "So … just get back as close as you can!"
Kurt nodded quickly and tried again — though he was frustrated to find that the dampening field the Weapon X soldiers had set up kept him from being able to get very close. He was nearly to the edges of the property when he arrived and had to take off at a run to get back to where the others were.
Logan was, predictably, in the middle of a large knot of soldiers that had a whole slew of new weapons none of the X-Men had ever seen. He was bleeding and looking like they were wearing him down already, though no one was too surprised, considering the dampener field was affecting all of them. He was losing — slowly — but losing all the same from weapons and sheer numbers.
Jubilee and Noh had been closest to Logan and were doing their level best to get to him to help. It didn't help that the power dampeners were keeping Jubilee from just blowing those creeps to pieces, but she was tearing into them with every single trick Logan had ever taught her and with a look of fury. She was already upset that the alarms had hurt her little boy's ears, and on top of that, they were trying to grab her Wolvie — so anyone that got too close got not only the brunt of her fury but a serious earful as she called them all kinds of names in both English and Chinese.
Noh was making a little more progress trying to get to Logan, but he was at a pretty serious disadvantage when the entire world had just recently had weeks' worth of firsthand experience on how best to make Kree miserable. The new weapons they were using against Logan seemed to have devastating effects on Noh, whose attempt to jump into a white run evaporated when he took a heavy hit that sent him crashing down — and he couldn't seem to make any headway.
Though Jubilee and Noh were closest, it was Scott that saw it as it happened when Logan couldn't hold himself up anymore and went down. The soldiers swarmed him in an instant; it was obvious that they had what they were after when they simply took him — tied and barely conscious — and the rest of the soldiers turned to defend their catch as they made their slow retreat, ensuring that they had plenty of time and cover to load Logan up into the chopper and take off.
Inside the mansion, some of the younger X-Men on the junior squad had been playing with Annie and the twins while they waited for the rest of their group to join them for training. Chance kept trying to take Tyler down, because apparently the little boy couldn't resist trying to take on the biggest guy in the room. And since Tyler was actually a giant marshmallow, it really didn't take much to get him to fall over and play dead, after which Chance asked in a very concerned voice, "You otay? I hurt you?"
Tyler peeked one eye open before he grinned and snatched Chance up to start tickling him. And his sister, who had been giggling over Sophia's scales that shimmered different colors depending on how Sophia let the light hit her, heard her brother's shrieks and ran over to try to tickle Tyler to save Chance.
Annie was watching the whole thing with a delighted look on her face as the kids played with Tyler, who pretended to be completely helpless to their attack and 'let' Chance escape to join his sister in trying to tickle him mercilessly. But when the alarms rang out over the mansion, the delighted look very quickly turned into extreme concern.
Annie snatched up Charlie, and Tyler handed Chance to Sophia while he bounded over to see what exactly was going on. He hadn't gotten far when a unit of armed soldiers caught his attention — or what they were saying caught his attention.
"Make sure you grab any little ones. The ones too small to actually go to school here. They're not interested in teenagers."
Tyler froze. For just a moment, he felt as if something deep in his chest had simply ...snapped before he turned toward the voice and flat out snarled with all he had in him.
He had absolutely no intentions of backing off of those guys as he charged them, but it was just that much more shocking when the man in charge nearly tripped over himself to get away from the broad blonde young man. Tyler took advantage of what had to be a case of mistaken identity and launched forward to backhand the guy before he turned to the other men in the unit and let his lip curl back with another snarling growl.
The fight there was quick and brutal, and Tyler didn't hold anything back until the soldiers were retreating fast. He didn't follow them though, instead electing to stick close to Annie and the little ones in case the soldiers came back looking for trouble, though his hands were shaking a bit.
"Um. Nice… energy," Sophia said, her eyes slightly wide. "You okay, Ty?"
"Yeah, I guess so," he said, the growl dropping out of his tone a bit as he took a deep breath and tried to calm down again. "I'm … I've been working on that."
"Well, whatever you've been doing, it's working," Sophia assured him.
Chance looked a bit wide-eyed too as he leaned nearly out of Sophia's arms to try to see Tyler. "Ty otay?" he asked quietly.
"Yeah, buddy," Tyler said, sounding much more like himself. "Just had to scare off the bad guys."
"Who's out there?" Annie asked softly.
"Right now just us. Um... there were some soldiers of some sort. I didn't see any patches or anything though," Tyler admitted.
Just then, Tammy came skidding into the room as well, looking downright worried until she saw Tyler. "Is everyone okay?" she panted. "I thought I heard…"
"We're fine," Sophia said quickly. "Everyone's fine. Right, Chance?"
"All safe!" he reported with a nod.
"I … kinda hit a few guys," Tyler said as he looked down at his hands, frowning at the bruising at his knuckles. "And I'm not healing up. What's going on out there?" The sound of the helicopters taking off was getting loud even where they were in the house, and Tyler was looking toward the windows with a worried look on his face — thinking about what he'd heard the soldiers saying.
Tammy shook her head hard. "I don't know, but I can't use my powers either. But I saw Bobby and Spidey tying up a few guys with webbing — and there's some serious-looking helicopters, and ... it's kinda crazy out there," she half shouted over the sound. "But Jubes seemed pretty mad. She pretty much took a guy's head off."
"Where are the little ones?" Tyler shouted back, worry etched onto his features. "I only saw the twins!"
Tammy looked taken aback by his tone and instantly dropped into a look of worry to match his. "I — I don't know. I didn't see anybody else out there, and then I heard you, so I came here, and…" She shook her head, eyes wide.
He rushed by her in a burst of speed, running toward where the last of the helicopters was taking off — though the line of soldiers protecting their birds was still thick. He could see Cassie and Hisako running toward the edge of the property line trying to follow a couple helicopters that had already taken off and trying to find the edge of the dampening field so they could grow giant and try to snatch the helicopters.
"GET IN THE BLACKBIRD, NOW!" Scott bellowed. "We're getting them back. Right NOW."
Those that were anywhere near Scott didn't even think about arguing or doing anything but following him toward the blackbird as Tyler caught up. Storm was also looking simply thunderous, and Kate was still firing arrows over her shoulder at the soldiers as she ran after Scott. Sophia and Tammy had apparently followed Tyler as well, and they changed course to follow the group at a run.
Naturally, the soldiers knew that they weren't quitting, but they took it as their opportunity to leave themselves. Though they were firing a few shots still toward the mutants, they were retreating into the trees as well.
Not a word was exchanged between the group of X-Men as they booked it as fast as they could, and by the time Scott got them in the air, it was painfully clear that their leader was just about as close to murderous as they'd ever seen him.
Well out of range of the dampener field, Logan was coming to on the floor of one of the helicopters. He'd been down for a while, and from the scents he was catching blowing into the body of the helicopter, he was near or over the ocean. He looked up at the nearest soldier and took quick stock of his surroundings, realizing quickly that this was eerily like the situation K had said she'd used as a means of escape from the program. But shy one Sabretooth and heavy a few more soldiers.
He lay there for a moment, listening to them talking about how they needed him to heal up a bit, taking stock of himself, and trying to decide the best way to attack while tied — and the best way to escape the cuffs on his hands. He needed to use what he had around him to get out of that chopper. He'd only have one shot, so it had to be perfect.
A quick look at the cuffs and he knew that they weren't something he'd be able to break, but his legs were just tied with rope, so...
It happened fast. He'd timed it out, anticipating what the soldiers would do and how quickly he'd have to react before someone got a dampener out or slapped a collar on him. The first soldier got headbutted as he rushed him, then Logan moved on to take advantage of the small space as they tried to pile on him and simply overpower him with numbers. A moment later the claws came out, and he started slashing and stabbing as best he could before he jammed his claws through the roof of the chopper, wincing as he heard the machinery screeching and shredding.
A moment later, he forced his way out of the chopper, simply jumping into the black water below as the chopper began to spiral wildly out of control and then careen into the sea nearby.
Logan half growled to himself. He hated swimming in deep water — and it couldn't have been much worse, seeing as he still had his hands tied in front of him. With no other option, he simply started to try and head for shore — very, very slowly.
In the blackbird, it was dead silent, and it seemed like everyone was half holding their breath and waiting as they sped after the Weapon X soldiers. So when Kate leaned forward in the copilot's seat and let out the softest of gasps, it sounded louder than usual and seemed to echo in the jet.
The could see the smoking remains of the helicopter in the water — it was sinking fast, so it must have been recent — but they couldn't see any sign of any living person in the water itself.
Scott looked like he might break his jaw for how tight he had it clenched shut as he took them in closer to the water, when all of a sudden Sophia's soft, melodic voice broke the silence.
"Lower the ramp," she said. "I can find them if they were in there — and you guys can keep going ahead in case they were in the other ones."
"I'm sure at least one of them was in that if it crashed," Kate pointed out.
"Yeah, but we don't know about the other one," Sophia said. She was looking down over the waves with a determined sort of look. "Trust me — I can do this."
"I can lower her down," Tammy offered. "That way, you don't have to make the jump from too high."
The three older heroes glanced at each other for a moment before Tyler leaned toward Scott. "I heard the soldiers talking about grabbing the kids — the ones that are too young to be students," he said quietly. "I know the twins are safe, but I didn't see anyone else…"
Scott looked somewhere close to panicked at that, but before he could work himself up and give himself a coronary, Kurt's voice came over the comms. "The soldiers took their dampening field with them. The bamfs and I have been through the entire mansion, and it looks like all of the kids are alright — though we're missing Tammy, Sophia, and Tyler. Are they with you?"
Scott let out a steady breath and nodded. "Well. At least there's that," he said to himself before he hit the comm to respond. "They're with me," Scott said. "We're trying to find the ferals. Crashed helicopter — no idea who's responsible for it — and Ty said the soldiers were after the kids. Can I assume that at least Krissy is safe?"
"She's with K and Elin and Sying at the cottage. I was able to get them there before the dampening field went up, but I wasn't able to get back until just now."
"It's Logan then," Scott said clearly, both to those in the jet and to Kurt over the comms. "We'll have to back away just so we can find him once you're in the water." The last bit he directed to Sophia as he brought the ship near the wreckage and hovered so she could get into the water easier.
Kate stepped over to help her down, careful to hand her a communicator. "If you find Logan, just let us know so we can come back for you with something more heavy duty to fish him out."
"I'll let you know as soon as I find him," she promised, eyeing the drop for a moment before Tammy helped to ease her down to the water, and she slipped down below the waves.
Once she was in the water, Sophia had to grin despite the situation, because she always felt more at home under the waves. She could see farther and hear better, and she simply started toward the wreckage with smooth, easy strokes as she breathed in the water and let it flow through her.
It took her a little while before she spotted the shadow that didn't seem like it fit in with the rest of the wreckage and everything else around her. She propelled herself through the water quickly until she was close enough to recognize Logan, trying to float on his back toward the surface.
She zipped up and hooked one arm underneath him with what she hoped was a very X-Man-like superheroic grin before she and Logan broke the surface, and she reached for her comm, still half struggling to keep an arm around him. "Found him!" she called out. "I found him!"
"Is he okay?" Scott asked as he looked for the blip of her beacon. "He's got a little history with not doing real well in a lot of deep water."
Sophia looked him over for a second. "Just out of breath, I think. And kinda, um, beat up? But sorta like he always looks after a fight? Not super beat up." She started to pull them both toward the shore, though they weren't swimming nearly as fast as she was used to with her heavy Wolverine burden.
It was about half a mile to shore, which really wasn't a problem for Sophia, since she did better in the water anyway, but she kept half an eye on Logan the whole time as he tried to help her keep them both above the surface of the water.
By the time they reached the shore, the rest of the X-Men were waiting for them on the beach, and both Tammy and Scott ran forward to help with the last few yards. Scott put his arm under Logan's shoulders and Tammy grabbed Sophia's arm and checked over her friend — Sophia had never swum that far before, especially not weighed down. But Sophia seemed fine, and Scott got Logan upright, which had everyone in the group letting out breaths of relief.
"Storm come with?" Logan asked as he half lifted his hands, still cuffed with what certainly appeared to be adamantium.
"Right here, Logan," Storm replied as she very quickly slipped over to work her magic, surprising even some of the older X-Men with how quickly she was able to pick the lock.
"They get anyone else?" he asked, looking up at Scott.
Scott shook his head. "Everyone else is either back at the mansion or with K," he said. "Kurt got her and the little ones out before the dampening field went up."
"She's not gonna be happy," Logan said as he started to make his way with Scott back to the blackbird. "Used her trick to get out — with a little twist."
Scott had to smirk at that. "Don't know why they didn't see that coming. They must not think you two talk."
"I think they figured I wouldn't jump," Logan said. "Being cuffed. She wasn't when she ran from 'em."
"Well, it's a good thing they overlooked that. But you know they won't next time," Scott said with a small frown.
"No kidding," Logan grumbled. "Course, I don't think they had time to radio what happened before I took the rotors out."
"Good point," Scott said, the smirk returning for just a moment.
The little group was in a much better mood flying back to the mansion than they had been flying out, and the younger kids were even swapping stories not only about what had just happened but other things like how their classes were going — so it was apparent they were feeling a lot better now that everyone was safe and accounted for.
When they got back to the mansion, the kids split off to go find their friends and also get a bit of homework done — and the older X-Men were headed to check on some of the damage the soldiers had done and to do a bit of cleanup
But Logan was not in the mood to do much of anything but find his family and called out to Kurt to either bring his wife back or take him to her. "I want my girls back, now."
Kurt couldn't stop the small smirk that spread over his face at that before he tipped his head at the others and teleported away to get K and the youngest members of their family. He reappeared a few moments later by Logan, with K carrying both Sying and Elin — since Sying was a little fussy and tired and cranky — and Kurt carrying Krissy.
"Sorry to keep you waiting," Kurt said with a small smirk Logan's way as one of the bamfs appeared with Noh in tow, pointing over at K with a very pointed look.
"Come on, my little starling," Noh said with a smile as he scooped the squirmy little guy out of K's arms and started to very quietly hum to him, which calmed him down quickly. "Let's get out of their way," he added between the bars of the Kree lullaby.
K barely let Logan get a hold of Elin before she kissed him and half wrapped around him, with Elin snuggling into him with a giggle. It took a moment, but once he let her go she very quickly looked him over. "What happened to you?" K asked as she fretted over the damage to his clothes — that were still soaking wet with sea water. "And why are you wet?"
"Ran into some trouble," he replied before he glanced up at Kurt with a quiet 'thanks' then simply led K away with Elin snuggled into his chest.
