It was still some time before sunrise when the Blackbird arrived back at the Xavier Institute, but the mansion was already buzzing. The Professor had sensed something was wrong quite a while before the X-Men's arrival, and he had Rogue, Jean and Alex on alert when the team emerged from the jet. But nobody was prepared for what stumbled out.
After a bit of stuttering, Rogue finally squeezed an 'Oh my God' out of her mouth. Logan was a total mess. Kitty looked like she'd been crying for an hour. Jean, without prying too much into everyone's minds, knew that Kitty had been crying for a long time, and that something really bad had happened to Logan, and it wasn't over yet. Not a good trip, overall. The girls rushed Logan to the Institute sick bay, while Alex greeted the rest of the team.
"Tough time, huh bro?" He said, trying to lighten the mood upon seeing that Cyclops had been beaten up a little.
"You have no idea...hold on, what's that?" The two brothers, standing right underneath the wing, looked up to see a small blinking light that shouldn't have been there. Quickly grabbing the boarding ladder, they determined that it was some sort of tracking device. Scott, very nervous at the thought of the men in black banging down the front gates, smashed the tiny bug with a wrench.
Professor X, after checking that everyone was more or less alright, wheeled down to sick bay as fast as he could. He'd telepathically told Kurt to stay with Kitty, as she was still shaken up. As for Logan...well, he himself got a little shaken looking at Logan.
"Is it April Fools Day and everyone forgot to tell me?"
"I said the same thing, but look at the clearance on this puppy."
"But him?"
"Doesn't look like we have a choice."
And so the two main guards got together some men and a forklift and began their entry through the first of a series of doors that led to Cain Marko's cell. If you could even call it that. A fair argument could be made that the conditions they kept Marko in were completely inhumane, but when you had the unstoppable Juggernaut locked up in your basement, you just had to take every precaution.
"How are we gonna do this, anyway?" One of the men asked. Would a forklift be enough to even move the massive mutant trapped in a stasis tube filled with bio-paralysis fluid? Amazingly, the lift held up, and soon the whole parade was moving back through the long hallway and out to the waiting armored truck. After making sure everything on the truck was locked down tight, and keeping Juggernaut's helmet locked up in the depths of the prison, the truck pulled away.
"Sure gonna miss that big lug...not," one of the guards joked.
"You're gonna be missing a lot, pal," the other guard declared, pulling something out of his pocket and zapping his partner in the back. With that, about half of the group of guards that had escorted Cain Marko to his vehicle put on their black shades and took care of the actual guards. Some went to their vehicles, some activated tiny devices on their belts to scramble any walkie-talkies in the entire complex, and some went dashing back through the tunnel to grab Jug's helmet.
Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and yawning, Scott plopped down at the kitchen table. The sun was bright and the X-Men were...looking at him and trying not to laugh. "Hey Scott," Logan said, "The next time you got a telepath in the sack, try to pick a night when nobody's home." "OH SCOTT!" Kurt joked. "Ah really didn't need that scene projected into mah mind," Rogue said, turning green.
Scott jumped as he woke up. He'd dozed off in a chair in sick bay, along with half the other X-Men who were keeping an eye on Logan. Weird day, weird dreams, he figured. Sleep deprivation, weird dreams, too. He looked across the room to Jean, who was also snoozing sitting up, and turned a little red. No way she could read his mind if they were both asleep, right?
As if on cue, Professor X rolled in, waking everyone up with a gentle telepathic push. Scott didn't like the look of the seriousness painted all over his face. Saying nothing, Xavier grabbed the remote from the arm of Kurt's chair and put on the morning news on the TV in the corner of the room.
"....Once again our top story this morning is the escape of Cain Marko, the unstoppable mutant convict known as the Juggernaut. In the process of being transferred to another prison--"
"Zey tried to tranzfer him?!"
"Shhh!"
"--Footage before our satellite feed was cut from the scene..." With that, the show cut away to some fuzzy footage of an armored car on a stretch of deserted highway. The shot zoomed in to see blue-clad police officers being attacked by the same black uniforms from the X-Men's adventure in Canada. And separated from the melee, a short guy with a weird mask was opening the back door of the vehicle with claws that popped out of his hands. Just as the doors swung open, the camera shot tipped over sideways and everything turned to static.
Pietro Maximoff, the only teenager in Bayville that voluntarily got up this early during summer vacation, almost choked on his nutri-grain bar. "FREDDY! YOU GOTTA SEE THIS!" Fred Dukes had a well documented score to settle with Juggernaut, the only man to ever physically knock the Blob down. The mutant known as Quicksilver hadn't had anything planned for today, but now it looked like he'd get to suit up for the first time since the Asteroid M incident.
Meanwhile, Juggernaut faced off against his rescuers after shaking off the effects of the bio-paralysis juice they kept him in. "You," he said simply to the midget of a man before him with claws coming out of his hands. Swinging a massive fist at the shrimp, who he recognized as one of his brother's cronies, he instead clobbered the side of the armored car and sent it barrel rolling several yards down the road.
From the side, someone threw him his hemispherical helmet. Without questioning who had tossed it his way, he placed it on his head. The helmet was the finishing touch, the thing that made Juggernaut truly unstoppable. To his surprise, however, all the latches around his neck clamped shut automatically before he could even raise a hand to fasten the first one.
Just as he realized that he'd been duped, an electric shock scrambled his brains, bringing the mighty mutant to his knees, clutching his helmet with shaking hands. His vision blurred by the jolt, he looked up to see one of the men step up right in front of him, holding a small box in his hand. "I believe we share some common enemies, and a partnership would be mutually beneficial" he said, turning the dial on his controller as Juggernaut made a move for him.
The surge almost wiping him out, Juggernaut had no choice but to listen to this pencil-necked clown. "In short, Mr. Marko, whether you like it or not, you now work for us." Although he was unable to see it, Jug's new and improved helmet now sported a large white 'X' identical to the one on everyone's uniform and Weapon X's belt buckle. After he gathered himself, the unstoppable stooge followed his new employers to those common enemies.
"We're not gettin' outta this one alive," Rogue said, looking out the window and shaking her head.
"Thanks for the optimism," Kitty hissed.
"Hey, look on the bright side, we have Alex this time," Evan offered. The barrage of dirty looks thrown at him closed his mouth for a long time. Havok was walking firepower, they didn't deny that, but Juggernaut was literally invincible. They'd stolen a victory over him the last time, and that was with the Brotherhood at their side. Besides which, although nobody really wanted a reminder, this time they didn't have Wolverine.
Down in sick bay, only Ororo remained sitting at Logan's bedside. The others had wanted to stay, but at her and the Professor's insisting, they went downstairs to try and prepare for what they knew was coming. Storm, too, should have been down there forming strategy, but she couldn't cry in front of the children, and even now she was just barely holding back the tears. Mother nature, however, didn't have a problem reflecting the weather witch's mood, as dark clouds formed in a matter of seconds and it began pouring.
Years before Scott Summers, the first student to carry the mantle of X-man, joined the Xavier Institute, Logan and Ororo had been Professor X's pupils. From when she was about Jean's age, Ororo had been learning how to master her vast powers over the elements. At the same time, Logan was taking a crash course in controlling his feral side. Although wheelchair-bound and usually calm, Xavier had gotten in Logan's face on more than one occaision, and as she observed over the years, it made the two men that much closer.
Charles must be taking his hard on the inside, she thought as she stopped reminiscing and the sad present settled back down. A few mintues later, however, she found herself remembering again. This time, less happy times surfaced in her mind. The times that Logan would come home in the wee hours of the morning, clothes torn and his bike absolutely trashed. No matter how smashed he got, both physically and with alcohol, he was always fine by noon the next day.
Then there were the times that he didn't come home, and then they knew something was wrong. Logan very seldom found trouble that he couldn't get himself out of by morning. But several times, they had found him not too far from his favorite hangouts, laid out by Sabretooth. But no matter what, he was good as new by the next afternoon.
Ororo smiled a little in spite of her sadness when she remembered the crush she had on Logan. He was significantly older than her when they started training, but he always stayed the same age and she grew up. She figured out the hard way that she didn't like him any more than a best friend the night he left to do some soul searching, or whatever reason he gave them.
She wanted to tell him a lot all at once as he roared away on his bike that night, stuff that never even occurred to her until he was almost gone. She'd kicked herself for a while after that, and now she was kicking herself again as she stared blankly at the heart monitor he was hooked up to. It was very unsettling, seeing the fast-healing Wolverine in this condition. Made it seem like the battle was over before it started. If they could do this to Logan, what chance did--
Cerebro, tied into the defense system on the grounds, sounded the alarm through the whole mansion. "Be well, Logan," she said, getting up in a hurry and kissing him on the forehead before dashing down the hallway.
After a bit of stuttering, Rogue finally squeezed an 'Oh my God' out of her mouth. Logan was a total mess. Kitty looked like she'd been crying for an hour. Jean, without prying too much into everyone's minds, knew that Kitty had been crying for a long time, and that something really bad had happened to Logan, and it wasn't over yet. Not a good trip, overall. The girls rushed Logan to the Institute sick bay, while Alex greeted the rest of the team.
"Tough time, huh bro?" He said, trying to lighten the mood upon seeing that Cyclops had been beaten up a little.
"You have no idea...hold on, what's that?" The two brothers, standing right underneath the wing, looked up to see a small blinking light that shouldn't have been there. Quickly grabbing the boarding ladder, they determined that it was some sort of tracking device. Scott, very nervous at the thought of the men in black banging down the front gates, smashed the tiny bug with a wrench.
Professor X, after checking that everyone was more or less alright, wheeled down to sick bay as fast as he could. He'd telepathically told Kurt to stay with Kitty, as she was still shaken up. As for Logan...well, he himself got a little shaken looking at Logan.
"Is it April Fools Day and everyone forgot to tell me?"
"I said the same thing, but look at the clearance on this puppy."
"But him?"
"Doesn't look like we have a choice."
And so the two main guards got together some men and a forklift and began their entry through the first of a series of doors that led to Cain Marko's cell. If you could even call it that. A fair argument could be made that the conditions they kept Marko in were completely inhumane, but when you had the unstoppable Juggernaut locked up in your basement, you just had to take every precaution.
"How are we gonna do this, anyway?" One of the men asked. Would a forklift be enough to even move the massive mutant trapped in a stasis tube filled with bio-paralysis fluid? Amazingly, the lift held up, and soon the whole parade was moving back through the long hallway and out to the waiting armored truck. After making sure everything on the truck was locked down tight, and keeping Juggernaut's helmet locked up in the depths of the prison, the truck pulled away.
"Sure gonna miss that big lug...not," one of the guards joked.
"You're gonna be missing a lot, pal," the other guard declared, pulling something out of his pocket and zapping his partner in the back. With that, about half of the group of guards that had escorted Cain Marko to his vehicle put on their black shades and took care of the actual guards. Some went to their vehicles, some activated tiny devices on their belts to scramble any walkie-talkies in the entire complex, and some went dashing back through the tunnel to grab Jug's helmet.
Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and yawning, Scott plopped down at the kitchen table. The sun was bright and the X-Men were...looking at him and trying not to laugh. "Hey Scott," Logan said, "The next time you got a telepath in the sack, try to pick a night when nobody's home." "OH SCOTT!" Kurt joked. "Ah really didn't need that scene projected into mah mind," Rogue said, turning green.
Scott jumped as he woke up. He'd dozed off in a chair in sick bay, along with half the other X-Men who were keeping an eye on Logan. Weird day, weird dreams, he figured. Sleep deprivation, weird dreams, too. He looked across the room to Jean, who was also snoozing sitting up, and turned a little red. No way she could read his mind if they were both asleep, right?
As if on cue, Professor X rolled in, waking everyone up with a gentle telepathic push. Scott didn't like the look of the seriousness painted all over his face. Saying nothing, Xavier grabbed the remote from the arm of Kurt's chair and put on the morning news on the TV in the corner of the room.
"....Once again our top story this morning is the escape of Cain Marko, the unstoppable mutant convict known as the Juggernaut. In the process of being transferred to another prison--"
"Zey tried to tranzfer him?!"
"Shhh!"
"--Footage before our satellite feed was cut from the scene..." With that, the show cut away to some fuzzy footage of an armored car on a stretch of deserted highway. The shot zoomed in to see blue-clad police officers being attacked by the same black uniforms from the X-Men's adventure in Canada. And separated from the melee, a short guy with a weird mask was opening the back door of the vehicle with claws that popped out of his hands. Just as the doors swung open, the camera shot tipped over sideways and everything turned to static.
Pietro Maximoff, the only teenager in Bayville that voluntarily got up this early during summer vacation, almost choked on his nutri-grain bar. "FREDDY! YOU GOTTA SEE THIS!" Fred Dukes had a well documented score to settle with Juggernaut, the only man to ever physically knock the Blob down. The mutant known as Quicksilver hadn't had anything planned for today, but now it looked like he'd get to suit up for the first time since the Asteroid M incident.
Meanwhile, Juggernaut faced off against his rescuers after shaking off the effects of the bio-paralysis juice they kept him in. "You," he said simply to the midget of a man before him with claws coming out of his hands. Swinging a massive fist at the shrimp, who he recognized as one of his brother's cronies, he instead clobbered the side of the armored car and sent it barrel rolling several yards down the road.
From the side, someone threw him his hemispherical helmet. Without questioning who had tossed it his way, he placed it on his head. The helmet was the finishing touch, the thing that made Juggernaut truly unstoppable. To his surprise, however, all the latches around his neck clamped shut automatically before he could even raise a hand to fasten the first one.
Just as he realized that he'd been duped, an electric shock scrambled his brains, bringing the mighty mutant to his knees, clutching his helmet with shaking hands. His vision blurred by the jolt, he looked up to see one of the men step up right in front of him, holding a small box in his hand. "I believe we share some common enemies, and a partnership would be mutually beneficial" he said, turning the dial on his controller as Juggernaut made a move for him.
The surge almost wiping him out, Juggernaut had no choice but to listen to this pencil-necked clown. "In short, Mr. Marko, whether you like it or not, you now work for us." Although he was unable to see it, Jug's new and improved helmet now sported a large white 'X' identical to the one on everyone's uniform and Weapon X's belt buckle. After he gathered himself, the unstoppable stooge followed his new employers to those common enemies.
"We're not gettin' outta this one alive," Rogue said, looking out the window and shaking her head.
"Thanks for the optimism," Kitty hissed.
"Hey, look on the bright side, we have Alex this time," Evan offered. The barrage of dirty looks thrown at him closed his mouth for a long time. Havok was walking firepower, they didn't deny that, but Juggernaut was literally invincible. They'd stolen a victory over him the last time, and that was with the Brotherhood at their side. Besides which, although nobody really wanted a reminder, this time they didn't have Wolverine.
Down in sick bay, only Ororo remained sitting at Logan's bedside. The others had wanted to stay, but at her and the Professor's insisting, they went downstairs to try and prepare for what they knew was coming. Storm, too, should have been down there forming strategy, but she couldn't cry in front of the children, and even now she was just barely holding back the tears. Mother nature, however, didn't have a problem reflecting the weather witch's mood, as dark clouds formed in a matter of seconds and it began pouring.
Years before Scott Summers, the first student to carry the mantle of X-man, joined the Xavier Institute, Logan and Ororo had been Professor X's pupils. From when she was about Jean's age, Ororo had been learning how to master her vast powers over the elements. At the same time, Logan was taking a crash course in controlling his feral side. Although wheelchair-bound and usually calm, Xavier had gotten in Logan's face on more than one occaision, and as she observed over the years, it made the two men that much closer.
Charles must be taking his hard on the inside, she thought as she stopped reminiscing and the sad present settled back down. A few mintues later, however, she found herself remembering again. This time, less happy times surfaced in her mind. The times that Logan would come home in the wee hours of the morning, clothes torn and his bike absolutely trashed. No matter how smashed he got, both physically and with alcohol, he was always fine by noon the next day.
Then there were the times that he didn't come home, and then they knew something was wrong. Logan very seldom found trouble that he couldn't get himself out of by morning. But several times, they had found him not too far from his favorite hangouts, laid out by Sabretooth. But no matter what, he was good as new by the next afternoon.
Ororo smiled a little in spite of her sadness when she remembered the crush she had on Logan. He was significantly older than her when they started training, but he always stayed the same age and she grew up. She figured out the hard way that she didn't like him any more than a best friend the night he left to do some soul searching, or whatever reason he gave them.
She wanted to tell him a lot all at once as he roared away on his bike that night, stuff that never even occurred to her until he was almost gone. She'd kicked herself for a while after that, and now she was kicking herself again as she stared blankly at the heart monitor he was hooked up to. It was very unsettling, seeing the fast-healing Wolverine in this condition. Made it seem like the battle was over before it started. If they could do this to Logan, what chance did--
Cerebro, tied into the defense system on the grounds, sounded the alarm through the whole mansion. "Be well, Logan," she said, getting up in a hurry and kissing him on the forehead before dashing down the hallway.