Marvel owns the X-men, no profit is to be made from this work.

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"I want to know why they're acting as if it's business as usual..." Raven whispered from their hidden place behind a snow drift.

The Windigo, a monster among monsters, the ice giant and eater of men that haunted the folklore of the aboriginal people of the northern reaches of the Americas. Thought just a cautionary myth against cannibalism, the truth was worse than even she had imagined. Staring through her scope, she watched horrified as the handlers of the abomination fed it an arm, one that was undoubtedly human.

A whimper drew her away from the awful sight, reaching to pull Jubilee closer to her and try and stave off the chill that had nothing to do with the storm. For all they cut at the beast, it healed as it was fed, the hunks of the ice giant thrown into barrels that were wheeled out of sight from the grisly abattoir.

"Kitty?"

"Copy, what can I do for ya?"

"I don't like what I'm seeing here, something isn't right. They have to know they're under attack yet I have two guards on a smoke break chatting..." Raven relayed, looking at the unthinkable at one of the side entrances to the hangar.

"Moira isn't getting any chatter over the radios, at least not from the hangar. I need another twenty minutes to get the data, but you know we don't want to pull out until we're sure we got anyone that needs rescuing. You're our second pilot two, you said you can fly that bird Pete secured."

"Copy, I'm gonna trust my gut on this. Call me if you need me, Raven out."

Intelligent eyes looked up to her and Raven threw Jubilee a wink, trying to shake off the horrific sight. They had to get into the hangar, every bit of intel on the windigo had that it only ate the flesh of the living and if it was getting fed that was bad news for someone. Yet right now she couldn't think about that, her gut was screaming at her that something was wrong. Sweeping her rifle off to the control tower, the lights were off and it appeared empty.

"You trust me?" Raven whispered, looking into those eyes for an answer.

Jumping to her feet and tugging along, Jubilee gave her answer by hauling Raven up to her feet. Running low and fast, they closed the distance to the control tower and melted into the shadows. Looking again at Jubilee and trusting her to tell if anyone was around, she shook her head and pawed at the door urging them to enter.

It wasn't locked, there was no reason for it as far as the mercenaries likely saw, attack on them just unthinkable. Creeping in and closing the door behind them, with the storm howling out there it was the first time in hours she had felt any real sense of warmth. She and Jubilee had been the first on the ground, the eyes and ears and some long range support to the hell that was getting dropped in.

"What's the play?" Jubilee asked.

Turning to see the young woman where there had been a wolf, naked as the day she was born and shivering. Pulling off her parka, Raven passed it to her, a grateful smile given as she slipped it on.

"Check the radar, find out if we have any party crashers we need to know about."

"You know how to operate that stuff?" Jubilee asked in little more than a breath, tilting her head and listening hard.

"I've had a lot of on the job training over the years." Raven said just as quiet, slinging her rifle over her shoulder and going to take point.

Yet as she took the first step up the stairs, she was shoved out of the way with Jubilee taking that job. She raced up silently on her bare feet that had to be burning from the cold, while the storm might be outside their breath still fogged. Taking the stairs slow and quiet, Raven saw her partner in the mission already at the top and peeking around the corner of the door.

"Empty, c'mon." Jubilee called just above a whisper.

Taking the stairs two at a time, the glow of old tech refurbished with new lit the room in a dull light. There were laptops and monitors sleeping away, but there on one of the old screens in black and green was what she had come for. Every time the line raced around it came back without interruption.

"Kitty, do you copy?" Raven called over the mic, looking around the control room and digging into her vest for some of the goodies Hank had passed out for the mission.

"Go ahead Raven."

"Bringing a camera online, can you sync up?" Moments passed, testing a few vantages for the camera until she found one she liked.

"Got it, synced up. Zooming in and...good. Nice work by the way, guessing you want me to keep an eye on the radar too?"

"Turn their assets against them, no sense in being surprised. Any change on the hangar?"

"No change, and you're right. Something's wrong beside the windigo now that I'm looking at them. Be careful."

"Roger, be safe. Raven out."

"Gotta say I like Raven over Mystique..."

Looking to the girl that could be her daughter if she could earn that trust, Raven gave her a smile and had a quick look around the control room. Jubilee had found a pair of overly large binoculars and had eyes for the hangar, with the jacket on her that was many sizes too large she looked like a child playing with her parents things.

"Hungry?" Raven asked, having stumbled on some foil wrapped granola bars likely leftover from the mercs.

"Starving."

Throwing a couple and having one herself, they'd need every bit of energy for their go at the hangar. While maybe she wasn't quite as dexterous and flexible as she once had been, she was still deadly in a fight and had no qualms about snapping a few necks or getting into a knife fight if it bought them a silent entry.

"Ready?" Rewarded with a nod, Raven took a few steps and gave the young lady a hug.

"You're...like, really worried...aren't you?" Jubilee asked, her voice hesitant and unsure.

"Yes, I am. I'm no saint, but I can worry over the wife of my son." Raven whispered.

"Did you, like, watch him? Growing up?"

"I couldn't, I wouldn't risk bringing my world into his, not one single clue that he existed. I was burning the candle at both ends, spying for the Americans and the Russians, fighting with Magneto, trying to help Charles when I could..."

The tension bled out of the embrace, and Raven let herself hug all the harder. She had too much time to think on her sins ever since Erik had betrayed her, and she had many indeed. But her one saving grace was thinking that she had brought something good into the world even if it was a legacy she'd never known. After Alkali Lake she had let herself look into that life, read through old newspapers and get to know her son through photographs.

Yet it was his choice of a wife that she thought she really caught a glimpse of his heart, thinking of a life written in just a few pages from the records she had once stolen from the boy she thought of as a brother, Charles Xavier. It was in all those little moments she'd watched on their flight, the whispered endearments and sweet and often playful kisses.

"Promise me you won't hold back..." Raven asked again.

"Promise me you won't do anything stupid, I'm the one that can heal." Jubilee countered.

Chuckling at that truth and thinking how she had taken point up the stairs acting as a living shield, it was a gesture that hadn't gone unnoticed. Kissing her atop the head, Raven gave one last tight hug.

"I promise, but that goes double for you about anything stupid. I've been at this a lot longer than you, respect your elders."

And in the reflection there was a smile, though her eyes were clouded with the awful resolve to do what had to be done. It was a resolve Raven swore to save her from, she had enough blood on her hands for the both of them and wouldn't see anymore unless it came down to that one choice, choosing her own life over one that sought her death.

"Lets go see about maybe saving us some folks and killing a windigo." Jubilee said, taking off her borrowed jacket and falling to four now dressed in fur.

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Picking teeth out of his knuckle, Logan felt the sting of his flesh healing and knew when the whole mess was over that Hank would have a field day picking shrapnel and bullets out of his hide. Trying a door and finding it locked, he opened it with a snikt twice over, cutting around the lock and frame and kicking it open. They were clearing the base one room at a time, looking for any stragglers and more souls needing a rescue.

"Clear..." Rogue hissed from down the hall.

Walking into his room, it was an office replete in finery and comfort that painted it as the home away from home of some head honcho. Sniffing once, a growl rolled from his chest as something about the place stirred ol' Jimmy Howlett from his grave.

"Babe..."

Her light tread announced her, her wolf reigned in for the most part though her hide was thick and tough and she had claws that would make short work of body armour. Her hand found his back and soothed him, walking together and exploring the odd office. There was a desk where whoever sat at it would have their back to the wall and a good view of the door and windows.

A small but soft bed with fine sheets sat in a corner, and grabbing a blanket he could smell that scent that had his old life clawing to the forefront. Whoever called the office home he knew, yet he'd never laid eyes on the man as never had his nose failed him, he always had a face or a place to go with it.

"Be careful." Logan whispered.

"Sure thing sugah."

He saw her sniffing the sheets and committing the scent to memory, following it around the room from the left as he took the right. An antique bookcase with a built in liquor cabinet struck him in the gut, hitting him hard with deja vu so strong he could hear the clink of glasses and smell the scotch poured into them. Opening the glass doors, he helped himself to a bottle and tried to remember with a taste before he threw the bottle to Rogue.

Cigars on the desk in their own humidor, taking one and running it under his nose to appreciate the quality. Clues in a breadcrumb trail, he pulled out a camera and started snapping shots of everything that struck a cord. A box of matches was pocketed, watching with appreciation as his lady love broke out her own little forensic kit and started looking around for likely prints to lift.

"Desk's empty." Logan muttered.

"Whoever was here they ain't been here for a while." Rogue replied.

It was the truth, but that he remembered the scent even vaguely said that they had been close. Days old, the scent told of a cunning man who had left before the failed op on the mansion, the failure to recapture him and his family. Accepting the bottle back for a sip, it tasted of her lips and helped sooth his frustration.

"Logan, come in." Kitty called over his ear bud.

"Logan here, go."

"Five more minutes on the data and the Blackbird is full. Gonna have to use the captured cargo plane to get the last out, us included. Pete's out there guarding it again and Moira is checking it for any surprises. I got Kurt with me, but I'm about as positive as I can be that the main complex is clear, how's your sweep going?"

"Just about done, might have found something, just doing some bagging and tagging. How's Lee and Mystique?"

"Radio silent, but I got them on an external camera near the hangar. Mystique got me eyes on the bases radar, I'm keeping an eye to make sure there aren't any reinforcements coming in without us knowing. Over."

Looking to Rogue, he could smell her concern, he wasn't exactly thrilled with that plan either but they were short on men and women. The fighting in the main complex had been fierce, and there were more than enough wounded and contained mercs that looked like they had the fight kicked right out of them. The fight was far from over, it had just started in fact. Their home wouldn't be safe until the Program was shut down, all until the next threat came around.

"Hurry up with that dump and get out there with Pete and Moira, Rogue and me are gonna go give Toto some back up once we clear the last few rooms. Over."

"Copy, be safe. Over and out."

Hurrying along with looking for clues, he let the sense of deja vu guide him around the room seeing it from the eyes of Jimmy Howlett and trusting that man's gut. Snapping photos of everything that tickled him in a bad way, right down to just the assortment of liquor in the cabinet, with a nod to the door he called that goose case off for now. They had work to do.

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She could smell it the moment she trotted through the door, the Windigo. It smelt of death, the cold, and her wolf within growled. Worse was how it mingled with the scent and smell of a hospital, sounds like a dentist office with awful high pitched screeching noises. The guard at the door noticed her as he stood there enjoying his smoke sitting on one of the barrels that had a biohazard symbol taped to the side.

"Hey, check this..." The merc called, and soon another joined him.

Through the snow heavy skylight Jubilee saw a shadow streak across the roof, one that went unnoticed by the guards who had been distracted. One dug into his vest and pulled out a pouch of jerky, holding out a piece to her. Playing the role of a hungry lone wolf, she crept up and didn't have to feign being hesitant as she snatched it and chewed away.

"Better hope her pack isn't around man."

"Probably got lost in the storm, hell, just might be some feral mutt or some half breed."

Finding her hunger despite being sick to her stomach thinking of what laid out beyond the wall that cut the hangar in half, she let them debate whether she was a wolf or not. A flash of red at the furthest skylight went unnoticed by the guards, but it was the signal she was waiting for. Raven was in position and she was free to barge in on the nightmare.

Her moment came as the one that called her a mutt reached to pet her, scrambling off and growling at them with bared fangs and raised hackles. They reached for their guns but she wasn't waiting around, racing off away from them and trying to prepare for whatever lay beyond the door. It was too late for her when she noticed the abort signal from Raven, three quick flashes from the red light.

The reason for it was right there before her eyes just beyond the startled butchers, standing frozen as one took a bone saw to a pale man laid out on a gurney to be carved up as food for the Windigo. There were more, men and women alike hooked up to respirators looking like the living dead.

"What the hell is going on!?" One man in scrubs shouted from where he was working away at the windigo.

"Just a wolf that came in..."

The words were cut off by a deep thundering growl of a mountain falling on a village, of earth moving in an avalanche that only brought death. All at once it came like a crashing wave, a deafening roar that shook the hangar and toppled the men and women who dared try to restrain it. In those uninterested eyes that had shown no care to its own apparent suffering, the Windigo looked at her directly and struggled against the shackles that dared tie it to the concrete.

Bolts were torn out of the floor, chains lashing around, and Jubilee knew real fear and terror as it struggled to reach for her. Her wolf clawed at her mind, tried to command her to run, but she was frozen to the ground. All at once sparkling arcs of lightning started running down her coat, balls of luminous light sparking and dancing through the air in ever growing numbers.

Her terror fulfilled her promise, and that voice in the back of her mind that still had any human thought left that wasn't cowering from the primordial dark screamed for Raven to run, for everyone to run. Gunfire rattled off as the mercenaries turned to try and subdue the Windigo, but it was a ricochet from those carelessly spent rounds that sealed their fate.

The sting of a bullet biting her and digging deep sent a panicked jolt through that cold terror that held her in thrall, it set her off in an explosion the likes she only feared she was capable of. The world became blinding light, the stink of burning flesh, and the howl of pain from an abomination that had hunted across the cold north for millennia.

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Raven had been distracted by the inhuman eyes that seemed to look at and through her, look at her in quiet contemplation of how she'd taste. There was an intelligence in those eyes, a dim light that had its own cunning. They were the eyes of the Windigo that looked up through the skylight she crouched at picking targets, counting guards and finding out just what the awful truth she feared an answer was, just how was this abomination fed.

Bodies had been the answer, living bodies lined up along a wall with iv drips and respirators breaking for them. It made her sick to contemplate, hoping down in the bottom of that box of horrors that they were as dead as they looked, just soulless flesh kept alive without any conscious thought left to know their suffering. Too late she realized her mistake, trying to call off Jubilee before she could bear witness to just how dark the Program was.

"No..." Raven hissed as the black wolf bounded in, skidded and came to a halt with terror filled eyes.

She had a new sin to add to all the rest, but that was a thought for later as she pulled out her pistol and prepared to join what was surely a fight brewing. And then she heard it, a howl that rose above the wind that raged around her, the Windigo waking from its seeming slumber and struggling at its bonds.

Concrete splintered and shattered as a bolt was torn from the floor, a huge hand reaching out and Raven felt her blood run as ice seeing just what it wanted. And then she saw that Jubilee would live up to her promise, the sparks arcing and dancing off her filling the room in a veritable flurry of light. A different kind of fear told her one thing and one thing alone, warned by those few pages she had read years before, run.

Racing across the rooftop of the hangar to the very edge, she leapt at the sound of gunfire and twisted midair for a tumble as soon as she hit the deep snow. The world was white and she was deaf, a growing ringing in her ears she was sadly used to having been around more than enough explosions in her life. There was someone calling her name over and over and over, and finally she could string enough conscious thought together to answer.

"What!?" Raven snapped, her own voice quiet but she was sure she was yelling.

"What happened?!" Kitty screamed over the radio.

Bamf.

There was the stench of sulfur in the air, smoke and concrete dust and worse. Looking back to the hangar, something rose out of it roaring in anger. It was the Windigo, but it flailed like it was in horrific pain. Chunks of it fell from its body, racing out into the storm leaving a trail of rot and ruin behind it. It stumbled, fell, and with another wet splash its flesh fell from it to bubble and steam in the clean snow all at once defiling it.

Ignoring Kitty and rushing to the aid of her son, she ran at the rubble to search for Jubilee when another wolf overtook her. The streaked wolf that was Rogue raced to the rubble and started sniffing around, rushing through the debris until finally she must have found the poor woman buried in the rubble. A hand found was all it took, her son vanishing and only after he found his wife.

"I couldn't warn her in time..." Raven hissed, her stomach a tight knot of regret and grief.

Rogue turned and all at once rose to her full height of some seven feet, looking down with intelligent yet feral eyes. Her gaze fell away and looked to the rest that laid in what had become their grave. There was only death in the air, even she could tell that without preternatural senses.

"Help me kill that thing..." Rogue snarled in a guttural voice, pointing to where the windigo struggled through the snow.

It was wounded, returning to the icy realm that had spawned it, always and ever hungry as the myth told. The meals just became its flesh, never becoming a filling meal, and thinking of those poor souls that were being fed piecemeal to it Raven felt herself get angry at the Program fro their inhuman depravity.

Pistol in hand she followed after the Big Bad Wolf to put her own demons to rest, and behind her she heard a noise that sent a shiver through her, snikt. The fight was joined, and she ran with the wild ones, repaying blood for blood.

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