"Laura. Laura wake up." Logan shook the kid, making her eyes open slowly and focus on his figure. "You need to take a shower and then we´ll go and grab our breakfast. I already brought your other outfit here. Come on, time to hustle." He started tickling the girl, making her laugh as she was fully awake now.
"¡Ya me desperté! Ya estoy despierta papá." Finally grabbing his arms she moved to give him a small hug. Logan ruffled her hair as she grabbed her outfit and stepped into the bathroom. The older mutant just laid on the bed and turned on the T.V., but a knock from the door made him stand up and go towards it.
"Good morning Logan."
"Good morning Hank."
"Uhm, can we talk for a moment? I want to discuss what happened yesterday with Laura and, well I also want to apologize." Logan´s face became stern as he went around the idea for a moment, finally nodding at the big blue guy.
"Laura, I´m going out for a second! I´ll see you at the dining room!"
"Okay!" With the girl´s response he left the room and started walking with Hank through the big mansion and started speaking with him.
"Look Hank, I know that what happened isn´t okay. And it´s even worse that it happened inside this place, but she was defending me."
"I know that, but it is not so simple. We have to follow rules and guidelines so that we don´t get in any kind of trouble with the Canadian government. And if they got ahold of the fact that a recently arrived mutant, who obtained her abilities unnaturally, murdered another mutant inside the school, we would be facing a possible armed confrontation right here. Our people would get hurt and then we wouldn´t have any place to stay that we could call safe."
"I…haven´t thought about it that way."
"Come inside." Hank opened the door to his office and Logan entered. Hank closed the door and sat in front of the older mutant. "We have to discuss what is going to happen from now on."
Somewhere in the USA
"Logan, please listen to me. You have to get out of there as soon as you can. They are going towards you. They know where you and those kids are. Please, get the hell out of there." Caliban moved around his containment cage with concern. Almost every single person in Transigen´s base had left the facilities and board the several helicopters that had arrived just outside. Getting frustrated the bald mutant started hitting his cage with full strength and, to his surprise, it opened. They must think I am not a threat. Moving cautiously he opened the door of the special lab room and observed his surroundings. Fortunately for him there was no one at the main section of the base, so he moved smoothly through it. Once he reached another door he heard voices, so he crouched and placed himself under a desk as the pair of voices got closer to him.
"What do you think will happen with the mission?"
"I don´t know. They took a fuck ton of people to that place and not to mention the amount of weapons. They even took all the Reavers."
"It´s going to be a kill spree."
"I don´t think so. They mostly took tranquilizers. But I did saw the boss going with them and some Reavers had real guns." As the voices drifted apart Caliban moved out of the desk and continued moving through the almost deserted compound. But what those men had spoken made him worry. Almost everyone was gone from the base, and that meant troubles for Logan. After a long time of moving around without any knowledge of the place and dodging any possible encounter with the leftover units Caliban found the exit. He opened the door slowly to see if it was daytime and, to his misfortune, it was. He returned to a room where he had seen several clothing items and placed some of them over him, but when he was finished he turned and was faced with a guard.
"Who are you?"
"I…I…I"
"Hey, you are that albino man, right?"
"N…No!"
"Yes you are. Ha, you managed to escape from your confinement, huh?" The guard started to lift his rifle and Caliban´s breathing got erratic, but something unexpected happened. "Actually, we don´t really need you anymore. Get the hell out of here muty." Astonished Caliban saw as the man left the room and left him all by himself. Shaking away the surprising feeling Caliban moved towards the exit once more and opened the door. The sun´s brightness still made his eyes hurt a bit since he hadn´t found anything to cover them. He moved out of the facility and walked. He walked for hours and once he saw a sign he stopped and processed where he was standing and what to do next. With faith he moved forward and passed the sign that said 'You are entering to Roseau, Minnesota'.
Transigen Helicopter. ETA to Mutant Haven: 30 minutes
"Commander, what are you planning to do when we arrive there?"
"Easy. Neutralize, retrieve and extract. It´s not that hard."
"But, there are a lot of mutants in there. We don´t know their abilities and if they represent a really high threat."
"First of all, the threat is going to be really high. But that´s why we neutralize. We´ll sneak on them and attack all of the mutants with the tranquilizers, that way the Canadian government won´t be able to press charges for hurting them and we can get a free tour of the place, in a manner of speaking. Now, the retrieval. We will locate all of the 23 experiments and seize them. With them we can actually use the real shit, since we are going to kill them anyway. We will need to find Wolverine and X-23 to bring them back. That would be the extraction. There is always the possibility of bringing in one of the other experiments so we can harness that ability. So, any other doubt?"
"Uhm…what are you planning to do when you find Wolverine?"
"I am going to make him suffer. He will desire death. He will implore to be killed. And at that moment I will deny him that. I will make him hurt as no one has ever done before and he will be my bitch. Then when we are back at Minnesota we can start working on X-25."
"That sounds convincing sir."
"Convincing?"
"Well, it sounds viable and you surely can do it. But, we are talking about the Wolverine here."
"A weak and old Wolverine. Are you doubting me?" Daken´s claws became visible and the scientist gulped and scratched the back of his head.
"I´m not sir. I just think that he might present some trouble."
"I am counting on that." Daken pulled his claws back and rested his head for the rest of the flight.
Canada, mutant facility.
Laura got out of the shower wearing her favorite outfit, that one her father had gotten for her at that hotel. She didn´t see her father inside, but remembered that he had told her to meet at the cafeteria, so she made her way towards there. During her small walk she noticed how several mutants were staring at her with odd looks, some even moved away from her way as she walked near them. She sighed and continued, knowing that everyone now knew that she had killed someone inside this very school. When she reached the cafeteria she was received by total silence and the eyes of every single mutant in there. Her eyes roamed around and tried to find her father, only to be received by his absence at the room. Moving quickly she grabbed her breakfast, some fruit and a wheat toast with chicken over it, and sat down by herself. She started eating silently, knowing that all the eyes in the room were glued to her, and judging her small figure.
"Hey Laura." She turned when she heard her name and was faced by the warm expression on Bobby´s face. She smiled at him and waved as the colder mutant took a seat by her side. "Good morning."
"Good morning Bobby." She moved her eyes around once more trying to find her dad, but was received with the same result. "Have you seen my dad?"
"Logan? Not today. Why?"
"He…uhmm…he was going to meet me here. But he isn´t here." The girl struggled, but mustered the words as she wanted to.
"I see. By the way, it´s nice to hear your advance. That English class is really paying off."
"You really think so?"
"I do. When you arrived you couldn´t speak too much English. Now you can talk and maintain a conversation."
"Thank you!"
"You are welcome." Bobby looked around and saw how several mutants were still looking at Laura with concerned faces. "Hey, she did the right thing. She protected her father, now stop judging her." With that the entire room took their eyes off of Laura and returned to their breakfasts.
"Thanks."
"It´s nothing Laura. You did nothing wrong."
"But-"
"No Laura. You were protecting Logan. It´s what all of us would´ve done."
"Then why…why are they…juging me?"
"Juging?"
"Uhm…ju…judging."
"Oh, judging. Well, probably because none of them ever imagined that could happen. Someone entering here and trying to harm one of us had never happened, so now that it did and you had to kill the guy everyone is surprised. But I am sure that they would have done the same if someone they care about would´ve been in danger."
"Oh. So, they are surprised?"
"Mostly."
"Que suerte que no saben que es lo que se siente tener que terminar con la vida de alguien."
"Sorry?"
"Uh, nothing. Just…talking to myself." She finished her breakfast as Bobby accompanied her. Both chatted and laughed through it and Laura was feeling happy that she had another friend in this place that she could count on.
Hank´s office
"Fuck that shit Hank!"
"I am serious Logan!"
"You fucking prick, do you have any idea of how much she has gone through? She has suffered her entire life!"
"I know! And I am not happy with this, but is has to be done!"
"You can´t do that to her."
"I can and I need to. Listen, she cannot stay here anymore. With her in here there is a risk of having another incident."
"And where will she go?"
"I don´t know. But she cannot stay here any longer."
"You motherfucker. She has traveled all the way from Mexico! She´s been running for her life for the love of God! All of that to get here and you are telling me that she cannot stay? That all of that effort and sacrifice was worthless? That Charles´ sacrifice was worthless?"
"Don´t you dare throw Charles in this! He has nothing to do here!"
"He has! He fought so that Laura could reach safety! His life was taken away so that this could be done! He wouldn´t do this."
"But he would kill the ones he loved, right?"
"Shut the fuck up! He was sick! He was sick! He would´ve never done that and you know it! You know damn well that he was the best person we will ever meet!"
"But he isn´t here anymore! And now that this girl killed someone in here, she cannot stay! It´s a risk keeping her here!"
"You know what that means, right?"
"What?"
"I am not staying either."
"Logan, you don´t have to go."
"Of course I have to. She is my daughter."
"You keep saying that she is your daughter! She was made at a lab! She is an experiment! She is not your daughter."
"She is my daughter! And I will do anything for her! If that means I have to leave this shithole then so be it." Logan stood up furiously and was walking towards the door, but stopped on his tracks as he started sniffling the air.
"Logan?"
"Something´s wrong." His eyes widened and he opened the door quickly. He heard as Hank was going behind him, but all he could think about was Laura. He reached the room where they had been sleeping, only to find it empty. Hank entered and stared at him as Logan kept sniffling the air.
"Could you tell me what is happening?" A second after that Logan moved quickly to the door, his claws out as he growled and got out of the room. There he saw as three armed Reavers were turning towards him. With a swift move he sliced the first Reaver´s throat, making his body fall instantly as a cascade of blood came out of him. The other two started shooting at him, the noise being cancelled by the silencer on the weapons´ barrels. Logan felt the sting from the darts that hit him, but he shook it off and plunged towards one of them, shanking his claws in his chest. The Reaver was about to scream when Logan had pierced his chest more times with his claws. As he allowed the body to fall he turned to see that Hank had just broken the other Reaver´s neck. Both sprinted out of there and found some of the mutant´s on the floor. Hank checked their heartbeat and felt relieved knowing that they were just unconscious. They continued moving until they reached the dining room, where several mutants were resting on the floor and ten armed persons where standing around them. Logan growled and sprinted towards them, knowing where he should go next to find Laura.
Dining room: Five minutes earlier.
Laura moved with Bobby out of the dining room, her stomach full after she ate her double dose of breakfast, and both started looking for Logan. During their shared walk they started talking about the school, Bobby happily explaining Laura what was his function in there.
"A chemistry teacher?"
"That´s right. Although I can tell you that chemistry can be really boring sometimes, there are times when it´s pretty interesting."
"What is chemistry?"
"Oh. I…uhm…forgot you are really young. It doesn´t matter."
"Where is my dad?" Laura asked herself as she was getting nervous by not finding her father.
"Uhm, Laura. I was meaning to ask you something about that." The girl turned and looked at Bobby with a questioning gaze.
"Uh-huh?"
"Well, you do know that he really isn´t…well, your dad, right?" Laura sighed and moved her head down after Bobby´s question.
"I know. But, I am still his blood and…there´s this connection. No puedo explicarlo…sorry. I can´t explain it, but it feels…right. He is my father. And I am her daughter."
"But how do you feel-Ah!" Bobby fell to the ground when Laura pushed him, making the dart miss the target.
Several men appeared in the hall where they were standing and started shooting at them. Bobby turned himself into complete ice so that the darts wouldn´t affect him and Laura sprinted towards them, the darts having no effect on her as she made the first plunge and stabbed one of them in the guts. As the man´s insides were spilling Laura made a final move and divided his head in three. As she felt more darts hitting her she turned and saw the other three men shooting at her. Growling the girl cut a man´s arm and pierced his throat, killing him almost instantly. Then she felt cold and turned to look at Bobby, who was freezing the other two men. Once he finished Laura tore them apart, making Bobby gasp as she ended those men´s lives. She got to his side and looked at him with a serious look.
"Tengo que encontrar a mi papá."
"Let´s go to Hank´s office before we do anything. We have to warn him." Both sprinted out of the hall and towards Hank´s office. On their way there they found more armed men that had already taken out several mutants in the facility. With ease Laura opened their path as she kept clawing and stabbing the men, Bobby helping whenever he needed to. When they arrived to Hank´s office they saw that there were body´s already laying on the floor and Laura saw the claw marks on them, knowing that her father was not captured.
"Where might they be?"
"¡El cuarto! ¡Sigueme!" Laura sprinted out of the place, Bobby following her without even questioning and both arrived shortly to the room, only to find Hank standing by the door.
"Hank!"
"Laura, Bobby! Are you okay?"
"Yeah, we are fine."
"¿Dónde está mí papa?"
"Laura? Is that Laura?" Logan moved outside of the room and saw Laura in front of him.
"Daddy!" She hugged him strongly and felt the hug being returned.
"It´s alright. I´m fine. I´m glad you are fine too." As the two had their reunion Bobby directed himself to Hank.
"Hank, do you know what the fuck is going on?"
"I have no idea. This men just came in here and started sedating our people."
"Yo sí sé." Both turned to look at Laura, who was still hugging Logan, who took the word at that moment.
"Transigen. They have come for all the kids."
"What? I thought they were protected." More men got into the hallway and aimed their weapons towards the four mutants.
"It seems they aren´t." Looking at Laura, Logan nodded and both sprinted towards them, teaming up to take on the dozen men in front of them. Bobby moved later, freezing some of them as they tried to keep darting Laura and Logan. Hank was about to move, but felt an unbearable amount of pain on his back.
"Going somewhere, you little beast?" The stab got deeper as Hank kept trying to reach the one who was hurting him, but his efforts were useless. Hank stared in front of him and saw that the other three mutants had almost beaten all of the men as the voice made itself present again. "You will be my token to make them mad. Have a nice trip, blue boy." After that Hank´s vision was no more as the three bone claws pierced through his skull. Daken left the body as he moved away from that hall, a smirk making itself present on his face. The commotion passed as the three mutants had executed all of the men that were trying to kill them and all of them turned, only to be received by a crunching view.
"NOOOOOO!" Bobby ran towards Hank´s body and kneeled by its side, Logan held Laura to him as he tried to look away from the scene as Bobby kept screaming. "Hank, no! NO! Hank! HANK!" Bobby started crying as he held the dead body of his old time friend on his arms. Logan and Laura simply walked away. They didn´t want to cause any trouble and, right now, they had to search for all of the kids and protect them. While running to find them, they could still hear Bobby screaming Hank´s name. Once outside both of them went towards the barrack where all of the Transigen kids stayed, but only found the empty space receiving them, forcing them to go out and try to find them. They looked for some minutes as they saw several darted bodies on the ground. Suddenly the sound of a helicopter entered their ears and both rushed towards the sound. Laura saw as some of her friends were being carried unconscious into the chopper and was about to rush towards them, but the figure that came out of the flying machine made her stop on her tracks and looked petrified as he kept approaching them.
"Hello X-23. You seem to remember me."
"No. Tú no."
"Yes, it´s me." Daken kept moving menacingly towards the couple and Logan turned to look at Laura, who looked terrified as she even started taking some steps back.
"Laura, what´s wrong?"
"Él no. Por favor, todo menos él." She grabbed Logan´s arm and tried to pull him. "Vamonos. Vamonos por favor."
"Laura?"
"You should listen to her, Wolverine." Logan turned towards the tennager, anger filling him as he felt Laura pulling his arm even harder.
"Who are you? Why is Laura afraid of you?" Daken´s face scrunched at the mention of Laura´s name, but he answered anyway.
"She does well fearing me. You should, too."
"What have you done to my daughter!?" Daken stood still at that moment. Logan saw as his face was starting to turn into pure anger as Laura kept pulling his arm.
"YOUR DAUGHTER!? YOUR DAUGHTER!? That thing over there is nothing but an experiment!" Logan now felt even angrier as he heard the young boy speak about Laura like that. "She is nothing from you! Just something made with your blood! Nothing more and nothing less! You wouldn´t even recognize your own family if they stood in front of you!"
"She´s the only family I have!"
"LIE! You abandoned her! You abandoned her and never came back!" Logan got confused as the teen kept screaming at him about some woman.
"What are you talking about!?"
"I am talking about Mariko! MY MOTHER!"
Logan became shocked by the last statement as his mind kept creating distracting thoughts. Mariko? She…she had a baby? She had a baby…from me? That cannot be. This kid most be…Holy shit. HOLY SHIT.
"You are Mariko´s son!?" Laura stopped pulling and turned to look at Daken, who resumed his path towards them.
"That´s right! I am her son! Which means that I am your son! And now, I am going to kill you!" Logan stared amazed at the bone claws that came out of the boy´s hands. Two of them where in the front part, just like his, while the third one came out of the bottom part of the wrist. There was no doubt now. He was his son. Logan returned to the moment when Daken continued speaking. "I am going to kill you, just like I killed your big blue sack of fur!"
"You killed Hank!" Now it was Laura who screamed. Her fear got replaced by anger as she focused her view on Daken, who looked back at her.
"Hell yeah I did. And I will kill these scum and take you back where you belong."
"No! I am staying with my father!"
"You are nothing! Not even a real mutant! You are a mistake! Just a lab rat that thinks too much of itself!"
"¡Te voy a matar!" Laura sprinted towards Daken and heard as Logan did too.
"Ha! You never managed to beat me during your trainings, you think you are able to do it now!?" Daken received Laura with a strong kick to her face, making her propel back. Logan growled at Daken and plunged towards him, only to be received by a roundhouse kick from the young mutant. "I have trained since I am two years old! You will never beat me!" Laura growled and stood up. She went towards him again and dodged his claws, shanking her own in his leg. "You bit-AH!"
Logan stabbed Daken on his back as Laura took her claws out of the leg and stabbed Daken´s stomach. With a chuckle Daken hit Laura on her chest with his knee, making her stumble back and try to catch air, but she was kicked again on the face. Logan started stabbing Daken´s back several times until his arm was trapped and broken in a simple move. He screamed from the pain as he tried to claw his face, but Daken crouched and threw Logan away from him. Facing Logan and ignoring Laura for a moment Daken moved and shanked his claws on Logan´s shoulders, making the older mutant grunt. Laura stood up once more and headed towards Daken, but the teen managed to move one of his arms and grab her neck, his other claws still inside Logan´s shoulder. Laura started stabbing Daken´s back with her foot claw, making the teenager take his claws out of Logan´s shoulder and begin stabbing Laura on her stomach. A loud noise and screams made the three mutants to divert their attention towards the barracks, where ice barriers had been formed and more were appearing. Logan knew what was going to happen if he didn´t do something and Charles´ words started echoing on his mind.
Your sacrifice will be their salvation.
"I´m sorry Laura." He quickly stood up and stabbed Daken on the back, making the teenager drop the small girl. "Run Laura! Run!" Logan then started shoving Daken towards the helicopter and he could hear Laura screaming to him.
"Daddy! No, daddy!"
"Run Laura! Go with Bobby!"
"Let me go you piece of shit!" Daken tried to shake off Logan as he saw Laura getting further away and they were inside the helicopter.
"You are not going to get her motherfucker!"
"I already have what I need. Close the gate!"
"What?" Logan saw as the chopper´s gate was closing and tried to get away, only to be brought down by several Reavers.
"Daddy!" Laura just saw how her father took Daken inside the helicopter and then the gate closed. The machine roared as it started to rise from the ground, leaving a crying Laura behind. "¡No por favor! ¡Regresa! ¡Regresa!" She dropped to her knees and hugged herself as she started crying freely. Not even the loud scream from Bobby and the cold breeze she felt as he tried to hit the helicopter with an ice stream made her attention to drift from her own sadness. "…regresa."
Inside the helicopter
"You think I was trying to get the girl? I wanted you. I wanted your blood so that we could create another one like you, but without any will." He punched Logan on the face as he was being held by the Reavers. "She is useless. I wanted to capture her just so I could torture her and kill her."
"Motherfucker!" Logan was received by another strong punch and he was tied from his legs and his entire body.
"Enjoy the ride Wolverine. It will be your last."
TO BE CONTINUED
Hey there everyone. Glad to deliver this chapter to all of you on such a special day. That´s right, today our very own Logan, Hugh Jackman, and our small Laura, Dafne Keen, won the MTV award for Best Duo! That´s Dafne´s first award in her short acting career! Logan deserved to win best movie and Hugh deserved best actor, but anyhow, they won! And best duo! Yay! And Laura´s speech was so perfect! Well, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. It´s not amazingly long, but it is longer than all the other ones I have wrote and I feel kind of proud of it. A lot of action in this one too. Tell me, did any of you guys was expecting Hank´s death? I hope not, since I wanted this to be kind of surprising, hope it was.
tcsportsmed7: I woulnd´t consider myself as a Miserables fan (I have seen the movie once), but I loved it! And suddenly is my favorite song of all! Thanks for noticing that on chapter 8! Yeah, Laura protects her daddy a lot. I was aiming for that with Logan narrating his Japan adventure! Seems that Logan is a sore loser, huh? Jejeje. That is indeed a sweet chapter. And now that you know what is going to happen, what do you think about Daken breaking our father and daughter pair apart? Thanks for the support! It means a lot!
Lone Reaper-068: I hope you keep enjoying it! Thanks!
Guest: Thought that Japan could be used in a funny way instead of it being grim and that stuff (although a Japan leftover came back to haunt Logan, jejeje). Laura seemed to enjoy her father´s story, hope she doesn´t adopts his language, am I right? Jejeje. About Mariko, I don´t know if I will use her or not. But that is actually a good idea. And about Magneto, when Bobby mentioned an "Eric" dying at Westchester, it was Magneto. So, in this story, Magneto is already dead. I can´t use him the way you suggest, sorry. I think that Apocalypse is now a different timeline from the original ones. I used DOFP to have a way to isolate Logan once more, but the timelines wouldn´t match, so I will not be mentioning Apocalypse.
Antares3: Thank you so much! I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
Have a nice day everyone!