Special Note: Everyone give thanks to Chris for hitting the button and (literally!) saying "hello or something"...:) And as my way of saying thanks for the review, here's the new chapter as promised...enjoy!

Chapter 25

(Logan)

We didn't make a huge announcement about being engaged or take out an ad in the school bulletin, but we did tell Marie, since she was really part of our family. Of course, a secret like that was too much for her to keep, so she told Kitty, who told Jubilee, who told EVERYBODY. I've always said that if you want to get the word out about something, all you need is Jubilation Lee. She puts any gossip rag to shame with that mouth of hers. So by the end of the week, when Sam and Storm returned from their honeymoon, there wasn't a soul within five miles of the school that didn't know.

It took a bit longer for Angela to explain to everyone that we weren't actively planning anything until after Evie's vision finally came to pass, if it ever did. We figured there was no point, especially if that Phoenix-Jean clone showed up with them. We had no reason to believe that anything Evie saw wasn't accurate, but there's always the chance something had changed in the meantime, something that was small at the time but would have a huge effect on the outcome. At least, that's what I was hoping. I was also hoping they'd just change their minds completely and not come at all, but the realistic – cynical, Angela would say – side of me knew otherwise.

So, it was in the spirit of keeping them away that we made the decision to hit another base. It was one of the bigger ones, tucked away in the wide nothingness of the Yukon, and based on the stuff in the Weapon X file, was pretty much always working. After they'd moved the bulk of their work from Alkali Lake, most of it had been taken to the Yukon facility. With a bit of help from Sage and Buzz, we managed to find the most current financial statement for the place and based on the number of employees and their supposed work there versus their expenses, there was definitely something still going on up there.

Because of the possibility that there were mutants in various stages of experimentation up there, we took a big chance and asked Hank if he would come with us. Besides being a doctor, he was also a good person to have at your back in a fight. Rogue and Remy had already agreed to come with us, so involving another X-Man didn't seem so bad anymore. I was sitting in the lab with him, giving him the pitch, but he interrupted me before I could finish. "Logan, you don't have to go on," he said, "you had me at 'hey Blue, we want you to come with us'."

"Are ya sure?" I asked. "I mean, it's gonna be dangerous, there'll be all kinds o' fightin' I'm sure. An' who knows if we'll be able to actually save anyone?"

"The important thing for me is to try. I know I am only human, only able to do so much. I am not Josh Foley, a miracle worker. But I will do what I can to assist you and those we may save." He clapped his hands and stood up. "So, when do we leave?"

And that's how, a week later, I found myself on the jet with Kyro and Hank piloting, Rogue and Remy strapped in just behind them while I comforted Angela in her typical panic. By taking the bird sub-orbital, we could make the trip in a fraction of the time it would take at normal altitudes, but the turbulence was several degrees greater. Flying lower was smoother, but took longer. Either way, Angela didn't like it, didn't want to be on the plane any longer than she had to be and at least she knew the Blackbirds were completely safe.

We landed a few klicks to the west of the base, hiding the jet in a stand of Scotch pines at the base of a fairly large hill. It was still very much winter up here, a fact that Angela grumbled about every five minutes or so. I wasn't bothered at all, this was my old stomping ground and I had really missed the deep snows and biting cold in a way. Hank was also fine, but with all that fur to keep him warm it wasn't a surprise. Kyro was already shifted into his feral form, so his own fur was doing a good job of insulating him from the chill. Rogue and Remy looked uncomfortable, but neither one of them complained. Still, because of the snow, it took us nearly two hours to get within sentry range of the base.

I scented the first of them long before I saw them, so I stopped the group and called them into a huddle under a huge pine. "All right, sentries are up ahead a little bit, so it's code names only from now on." Everyone nodded and I continued. "Totem, Hellcat, take the high road. Rogue, in the air as close to the treetops as you can without bein' seen. Beast, Gambit with me."

Angela and Kyro scrambled to their positions while Rogue pushed off the ground elegantly and took to the air like she'd flown her whole life. Once they were aloft, Hank and Remy took position just behind and to either side of me and we moved out. We got within visual distance a little while later and the three of us hid behind the trunks of the massive trees. There were four of them, huddled together in a knot and I shook my head. Again, the remoteness of the location coupled with the fact that we hadn't hit anything in a pretty long time had made them sloppy, which would be the last mistake they ever made.

I signaled to my companions on the ground as I tapped the com in my ear. "Totem, Hellcat, Rogue. Four sentries at two o'clock from my position."

"Copy Wolverine." Totem replied. "How do you want to do this?"

I frowned in thought. I really didn't want to involve Hank any more than was strictly necessary. "Beast, hang back and only come in on my or Hellcat's say-so. Same goes for you Rogue."

"Roger that." He said, but I could hear the disappointment in his voice. Marie also came back with an affirmative reply.

"Hellcat, Totem, move on my mark. Gambit, with me." We broke cover and went on the move again, the only sound we made was the creaking of snow beneath our boots but it was masked by the sound of the wind blowing through the trees and the chatter of the sentries. When we got within fifteen feet of them, I shouted "now!" into the com, popped my claws and ran in to face them.

The skirmish was over almost as soon as it began. Angela and Kyro dropped out of the trees onto the backs of two of them as Remy took one out with his charged-up staff and I swept my claws through the neck of the last one. The four of us stood there looking around for a moment. "Is that it?" Angela asked as she kicked one of the bodies.

"Seems that way." I replied with a shrug, scenting the air, but I didn't detect anything except the people in my group, the bodies on the ground and the nature smells I expected. "Didn't even break a sweat."

Hank approached and a frown crossed his face when he saw the dead sentries. "Was all of this really necessary?" He asked.

I opened my mouth, a snarling retort on my lips, but Rogue beat me to the punch. "With all due respect McCoy, we ain't here to socialize. We leave anyone alive and they'll be able to report back to their superiors that the three of 'em have backup now and who we are. We can't have that."

"What she's trying to say is that it's too risky to leave anyone who can identify the three of you." Angela supplied helpfully. "Totem, Wolverine and I have done our best to avoid the news cameras, keep our names out of the papers, but even we've slipped through a few times. But we're not concerned about the Director leaking our names to the press. I'm sure he knows that if it came out that we were responsible for the wholesale slaughter of all these people, we'd counter his move by showing the world what was done to us with their tax dollars." She shrugged and spread her hands. "So, for us, it's a stalemate. You three, on the other hand…"

She didn't need to finish her statement. Hank took a deep breath, looked down at his feet, over to the bodies and finally back to us. "This is why you didn't want to involve anyone, isn't it? The real reason. You've been trying to protect us."

I nodded. "Got it in one, doc. You're a known an' respected scientist, no reason for ya to be sloggin' through the snow with us. It's taken us how many years to get the world to stop spittin' on us as we walk down the street? An' a big chunk o' that's cuz o' what the X-Men have done. Imagine what'd happen if they thought the whole team was in on this."

"My God." Hank breathed, the full gravity of what we'd been doing finally hitting him for the first time. "I never thought…this was about a lot more than just revenge all the time, wasn't it?"

I nodded as Angela spoke. "Yes Blue, it was. I mean, it started that way for sure. But when we found that woman nine years ago that they'd just started the bonding process on, we knew it was only a matter of time before they branched out. We didn't know then that they'd already done that, when they cloned Jean and later Logan. Once they knew they could replicate him, what was there to stop them from simply isolating certain aspects of him, like his healing factor? If they introduced that into someone like Rogue, you'd have the perfect close-quarters assassin. Or give it to someone like Mystique, who could make it look like someone else did the job. The three of us, just the way we are, we're more or less unstoppable. Drop us in a hot zone and we'll be pretty much the only ones who make it out. But what if you could drop ten of us? Fifty? A thousand?" Her eyes hardened even as Hank's grew wider. "What sets us apart from the rest isn't the claws or the animal instincts, it's the fact that we're very hard to kill. We always make it through, no matter what."

Hank shook his head in disbelief. "How much of this is in the files you've confiscated over the years?"

She shrugged. "Most of it. The rest we found out by interrogating scientists, project leaders, military officers. They haven't perfected the process yet," she gestured vaguely towards the base, "but this is where they've been working on it."

I stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder. "We can set 'em back twenty years by takin' this place out. But if we're gonna do that, we gotta get movin'. They'll be checkin' in on these guys soon an' I don't wanna be here when they do."

"There's something else you're not telling me, isn't there?"

"Plenty, but we ain't got the time right now. Let's move." Angela and Kyro scrambled back up into the trees as Rogue took to the air. I gave Hank's shoulder a squeeze before releasing him, then turned and started back in the direction of the base with Remy hot on my heels. After a moment's pause, Hank came as well, but I knew that he wasn't completely satisfied with the answers he'd been given. We'd explain more once we got back to the mansion, but what I'd said was true. Now was not the time.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It took us about seven hours all told to finish up on the base. The good news was that we managed to save eight mutants, three of which were children. The bad news was what happened to Hank.

We'd all hoped that enough time had passed since our last assault that they would have stopped using the trank darts that had nearly cost us Kyro at the Washington State facility, but we had no such luck. I've always said that a little paranoia is a healthy thing, because it keeps you alert and ready for anything. Naturally, I didn't want the Weapon X people to be ready for us, but I'd planned for just about everything in that regard. What I couldn't have known, no one could have known, was how Hank would react to whatever concoction they put in those darts.

It happened early on, just as we were entering the underground portion of the base. We'd taken out about a dozen armed guards in an anteroom just off the main stairs and Hank had shown that he did know there was a time and place for extreme force when a soldier managed to get the drop on Totem as he was engaged with two other men. The kid pulled the trigger at point-blank range, hitting Kyro directly in the back of the skull. It's a minor miracle that he wasn't hit by the ricochet, but it hadn't escaped Hank's notice how badly that would have gone if it had been Rogue or Gambit instead of one of us that had been shot. I didn't even realize that he'd jumped into the fray until I heard him snarling and I took a precious second to glance over just in time to see him elbow the kid in the face hard enough to shatter every bone and he dropped like a sack of bricks, no longer breathing. A few seconds later, the rest of the guards were dead.

"Ya get it now Blue?" I asked as I wiped blood off my forehead.

"Yes, I do," was all he said, his eyes hard and his jaw set. I knew then he'd be all right.

We regrouped and started down a long hallway that my nose told me led to a laboratory, always my favorite first thing to destroy. As we rounded a corner, I heard the faint pops of air-powered weapons followed by a series of grunts from both Hank and Totem. Remy was already on it, charging a handful of cards and tossing them expertly down the dimly lit hallway. The explosions barely covered the screams of the men that were caught in them and from the sound of it at least a few of them didn't live long enough to care how much it hurt. Totem snarled as he pulled a couple darts out of his arm, then leaned against the wall to wait for his healing factor to deal with the tranks. Hank, on the other hand, had other problems.

He'd been hit by at least four of them, but only two managed to get through his thick fur to actually inject their poison into his system. Rather than knocking him out, the concoction had the opposite effect and he was overcome by a major case of the jitters. Ever the scientist, he pocketed the darts "for further analysis back at the lab" and we continued on with the mission.

Seven hours later, we were boarding the jet with our usual bundles of files and disks in addition to the eight mutants we saved. Hank was no longer twitching like someone had shoved a live wire up his ass, but he was complaining that he was viciously hungry. He tore into the emergency supply of protein bars that are kept on every jet and ate all of them before we got back to the mansion. They tided him over long enough for him to get his patients into the infirmary and settled in for overnight observation, but I'm guessing they soon wore thin as he started in on his secret Twinkie stash as soon as his last patient was calmed down and comfortable. I shook my head in amazement and grinned, then retreated back to the suite for a shower and sleep.

About four hours later, after falling asleep in a tangle of sweaty limbs and sheets with my woman, I was awakened by a crashing sound downstairs. I gently extracted myself from Angela's arms and quickly pulled on a pair of sweats, then quietly stalked out of the room. As I made my way down the stairs, I could hear voices in the kitchen. I strained my ears and grinned when I realized it was Hank and Sam and I could only assume that the doc was still suffering from his post-trank munchies, while Atlas had probably just wandered in for more fuel to keep his hyperactive metabolism going. I was about to turn around and go back to bed, but their sudden burst of laughter made me curious enough to continue to the kitchen.

"Are you sure they've been chilled long enough?" I heard Sam ask.

"Absolutely," Hank replied, "this Magic Shell stuff doesn't take long to set up and the whipped topping was already cold."

"Oh, I see you are right my friend. Hand me the Nerds, please."

Whipped topping? Magic Shell? Nerds? Did I even want to know? I caught a whiff of something in the air that smelled like…bacon? Even as part of my mind was screaming to just back away slowly, another part wanted to know what the hell they could possibly be doing with whipped cream, Nerds and bacon at the same time. I turned the corner and stepped into the kitchen, then stopped dead at the sight before me.

Don't get me wrong, I've eaten a lot of crazy shit in my day to survive, everything from grubs to raw fish caught fresh in a stream, but I have never once considered the creation I saw the two men in the kitchen were about to eat. From what I could smell, they'd taken a Butterfinger and a Snickers bar, glued them together with Nutella, wrapped them in bacon(!), smothered them with maple syrup and then topped them with Nerds and whipped topping. They had apparently chilled these things, then coated them with Magic Shell and sprinkled more Nerds over the top for garnish. I could feel my pancreas screaming in agony at the thought, healing factor or not.

"What the hell are you guys doin'?" I asked and they both stopped with the nasty-looking things halfway to their mouths.

Sam was the first to answer. "Oh these? Umm, well…you see, I came in for a snack and I saw that Hank was already here, experimenting with the bacon and the candy bars."

Hank nodded, a huge grin on his face. "My good friend Sam here then suggested that I try adding Nutella as a binding agent, but I thought the maple syrup would set off the bacon nicely. He agreed."

I held up a hand to stop them. "Really, you don't hafta tell me any more, I can smell it. What's got me wonderin' is how you can actually eat 'em."

"It's actually quite good," Sam said and held out his plate, "Would you like to try one?"

Now I did back away slowly, both hands in front of my now. "Hell no. I've eaten some fucked up shit, but there ain't enough money in the world to get me to try that. Hell, there's potheads out there that wouldn't consider it."

"Is the mighty Wolverine afraid of a mere snack food?" Hank taunted with a grin.

"Look bub, I know what's food an' what ain't. There ain't nothin' 'mere' about that thing, it's a diabetic coma waitin' to happen. You enjoy yourselves, I'm fine." I turned on my heel and beat it back to the suite, the sounds of their laughter echoing in my ears. Some days it just don't pay to check out a weird sound in the kitchen.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The next day, Hank had finally shaken off whatever the side effects were of that trank he'd been hit with. He was in the process of analyzing the darts as well as a sample of his own blood in an attempt to figure out what happened. I asked him how long it would be before he had an answer, but his best guess was a week at the outside. I wasn't too worried about it, as long as he left the bacon and candy bars alone from now on. My stomach still turns to this day just thinking about that.

With eight new patients to take care of, he called in Dr. Endicott to assist him for a few days getting them back into shape. Two of the adults were a married couple and one of the kids was theirs. They hadn't been at the base very long as far as they could remember, less than a month by the woman's calculations. That was the only good news to come out of this. On the flipside, the other two children had been kidnapped and Hank reported that the Professor had been down to see them earlier in the day for a quick telepathic scan. During the scan, he discovered that the children had been taken by force from their families as they were traveling down some pretty remote Canadian roads, their parents killed. Xavier had immediately set out to see if they had any remaining family, though I know he was prepared to take them on as his wards if he had to.

The remaining adults – two men and one woman – had been there much longer than the rest, though none of them had been put through the bonding process yet. After a careful analysis of their DNA, Hank determined that they had been injected with some kind of serum that had been created using my DNA to give them my healing factor. Otherwise, they were unremarkable as mutants go. The woman had the ability to generate heat (but not fire), one man could produce small bursts of electricity ("not even enough to power a calculator," he joked) and the other man's skin was stretchy like rubber. This proved to us that the Weapon X people were tired of looking for mutants like me, Angela and Kyro and were setting out to just make them.

The three of us walked into the infirmary just as Hank was finishing his final once-over of the three adults. He smiled when we entered and motioned for us to wait in his office. A few minutes later, he followed. "Ah, the Deadly Trio. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Deadly Trio?"

"My own little nickname for the three of you," he explained as he settled into his chair, "for when you went out on your personal missions."

Angela giggled and Kyro just smirked, but I was not as amused. "Hey, you know we only did what we had to do."

"I know, my friend, much more than I did before." He looked at Angela with a soft expression even though he was speaking to all of us. "I do hope that you will find it in yourselves to forgive me for any misunderstandings we may have had in the past in regards to those missions."

I was confused, but Angela just smiled. "Of course, Blue, no worries."

He returned the smile, then clapped his hands. "So! What brings you here today?"

We looked at each other, but it was Kyro who started. "Doctor, we did promise to tell you the rest of what we suspect is going on within Weapon X." He said simply.

"Yes, I hadn't forgotten, but I did have patients to take care of, as well as my own difficulties to work through." He glanced at me and I smirked. "Where would you like to begin?"

"The only place we can, the beginning." I said and we launched into our story. It goes something like this-

Eight years ago, the three of us started hitting small Weapon X facilities in an attempt to bring down the people in charge. After our third time out, we determined that taking out the bigwigs wouldn't be enough, the bases and everyone in them had to go. This decision was not made lightly, since Angela and I had long ago had our fill of senseless killing, but when that nameless woman was killed by the very people who wanted to use her, rather than allow her to fall into our hands, we became suspicious. After all, what did it matter if we took her with us? We knew what they were doing, right? We were dead wrong.

That woman, whose name we never learned, who hadn't even been given a code name yet, was the first person who had successfully assimilated my healing factor. After months of hellish testing that could rightly be called torture, they declared her a success and stuck her in the tank. They'd barely gotten started on her when we busted in and the bastards had ripped her out of the tank and decapitated her before we got within ten feet of her. In our bloodlust, we hadn't thought anything of it. It would be another six weeks before Buzz and Sage had the answers for us and that was when we knew we couldn't let anyone live, from military officers to janitorial staff. The bigwigs like to think they can keep their secrets, using things like "need to know" and "eyes only" to keep those lower in the chain from learning anything, but the fact is that people talk. The problem with that is where they talk all the time, no matter who's lurking about and those who are not considered "important" are more or less invisible to the rest. Angela and I had seen it dozens of times back at Alkali Lake, a couple scientists and Stryker going on about so-called "top secret" things in front of some guy mopping the floor. So, we had to assume nothing had changed in that respect and if even one person who knew that it was possible to make anyone as invincible as me was left alive, it was one person too many.

Of course, the cloning project was another huge problem. We'd been freaked out enough when we first read the words "Project Phoenix", but it had gotten much worse now that we knew who that was. Somewhere, probably Area 51, was a twelve-year-old girl who was an exact copy of Jean Grey, but without the advantage of being taught control and ethics by Charles Xavier. As if that wasn't enough, the last batch of files that Buzz had completely analyzed mentioned the clone they made of me. Previous clones hadn't been viable on account of too much genetic manipulation during gestation. The last one they tried, only called X-23, had been created using my DNA in whole, but they'd allowed the fetus to otherwise develop on its own. They were a bit shocked when it came out and it was a girl, but otherwise her DNA was a perfect match for mine. That child was also being held in a "secret facility" and she was about six years old. It was still unknown if she would fully manifest all of my mutations, but apparently she already had the temper and attitude so their hopes were high.

Drunk on their own power, they weren't content to stop there. These people wanted an army of unstoppable, unkillable mutants and waiting for them to grow up and possibly manifest the mutations they wanted simply took too long. So, they picked apart my DNA until they found the parts they wanted the most – healing factor, animal aggression and instincts and heightened senses in that order – and created their serum.

"…And that's all we know for sure." Angela finished. "Now they can turn any mutant into a killing machine with a few injections, a bit of torture and brainwashing. In just under a year."

Hank nodded gravely, his huge hands shaking just a bit. "How many have they done this to?"

"No idea." I said, leaning back in my chair. "For all that there's seven billion people livin' on this rock, there's still plenty o' empty space where they can rebuild their labs an' keep workin'. I'm bettin' that for every three bases we've taken out, at least one new one's been put up somewhere else."

"Or they've moved the work to other facilities we never got to." Kyro added. "And yet, with all that we have accomplished, little Evie's vision has never stopped, only changed. Those men are coming to this school. The only question is when."

Hank took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. "Yes, we are well aware of that. Charles attempted to learn a more exact date by scanning Evie's memory of the vision, but he was unable to glean any more clues than those we already have. There was simply nothing in her 'line of vision' that indicated when it would happen."

"Well, if it don't happen before June, it probably won't happen til mid-fall," I said, "which still give us plenty o' time to prepare."

"Yes, we've already changed the evacuation procedure and we are hoping that your daughter will be able to give us some lead time. But what about afterwards? Rebuffing their attack won't stop them for good."

"No, it won't." Angela sighed. "But I am still determined to get into Area 51 sooner or later, if only to get my little girl back and put her to rest. The Director is the key to this whole thing, always has been. If we can just get rid of him, the whole thing will most likely fall apart."

"The foremost question in my mind," Hank said as he stood up, "the one thing I still do not understand, is why is Weapon X going to all this trouble in the first place?"

"Hell doc that's an easy one." I said. "The Director hates mutants, hates us more'n anythin' else on the planet. So he's gonna fight fire with fire." McCoy's eyes narrowed and I heard his heart speed up in his chest. I nodded. "Yep, he wants a mutant army designed to kill their own kind."

AN: As i've said before, inspiration comes from the weirdest places...the candy bar and bacon snack is taken wholly from an episode of "Carson Daly" that i saw at work one night...my beta reader (Turiel Tincdaniel) and i have dubbed it "The Mary Sue of Snack Foods"...have i tried it myself? NO...but it did occur to me that certain drugs can have effects on people that are completely opposite from their intended purpose...some people get sleepy on stimulants, whereas some people get jittery from sedatives...it's a pretty small percentage, but it happens...and i took that knowledge and used it for the sole purpose of getting the Mary Sue of Snack Foods into the story and Hank seemed the most likely person to do it, with Sam as a close second...not to mention, it's a funny scene...:)

Special thanks to everyone, especially the reviewers who were MidLifeCrisis, theNightEnchantress, Levanna, Nataku's Wrath and the aforementioned Chris! MLC: Sent you a PM, don't know if you got it...but to answer your review...no, i don't and you'll see why by the end of the story...:) theNightEnchantress: honestly, i was never going to do it! It just happened and i couldn't get it to make sense when i tried to change it...:) Levanna: Well DUH! It's not like i haven't built up to that all this time...but be prepared for an unexpected twist anyway...:) Nataku's Wrath: I had toyed with the idea of having something happen "after 'I do' but before cake", as Logan was worried about, but i figured there had to be at least ONE DAY where everything went right! Chris: Thanks for the review and your kind words...:)

Now, there's only TWO chapters left! Do you want to wait 8 days? Or would you rather see this done before the weekend is over? Only YOU can make that happen, if you've never reviewed before...just hit the review button and say hello, and i'll post a new chapter as soon as i get it...as Chris will tell you, it works like a charm!