Chapter 5: Sadly sings Destiny
My name's Fate. Or that's what I'm calling myself now anyway. It was a long time since someone called me by my real name, Cassandra. Not even Charles does and he's always been a very close friend to mine. He calls me Fate even though he doesn't like the name anymore than I do.

But it is fitting. I only pray that the deaths that has recently took place was all my vision meant. I don't know yet but I will eventually for all the good it wil do. My gift's pretty useless. What's the point in getting glimpses of the future when you can't do anything to prevent it from happening?

Wonder if it was the same for the seer that forsaw the coming of Apolalypse's rise to power and his victory? I guess so but am hoping that the seer was mistaken somewhere. Otherwise the war is already over.

Not that there's much of fighting we can do. Charles is still comatose and Jean is doing her utmost to bring him back, both with her medical skills and with her telepathy. Ororo and Scott are prisoners of Apocalypse. We know they're still alive thanks to Jean but nothing more. Remy, Bobby, Logan, Kitty, Jubilee and Rogue are alive. Remy despite all odds. Not much of a striketeam if you ask me.

Especially when you consider Logan's condition. It almost literally tore him apart when he found out that he's partly guilty of this and what he had been in his past. Of course, I knew it. Not that he was the one but that someone would unwittingly become a traitor.

Everyone has tried to convince him that it's not his fault and that he's a better man now than what he was back then and that this could have happened anyway. He's not listening though. Not even to his girlfriend, Rogue. An odd couple if I ever saw one but they were happy before this. Now I'm afraid it will tear them apart.

Not because of Logan's past or part of this but because he's shutting everyone out. His guilt is eating him up from the inside. Because of him the only family he has ever had has been destroyed.

flashback to the night Logan found out
Logan stormed out of the tent where Remy was lying in his sickbed, sick and tired of himself. Of what he had been. What he might still be. Disgusted with himself. Jean sensed his inner conflict and selfhatred and rushed over to him.

"Logan? What's wrong?"
"You don't want to know. Hell, I don't want to know."
"Talk about it might help."
"No. Nothing will help. Not this time." he said and accidently dropped the new set of dogtags. Jean picked them up and asked "Didn't you gave that to Rogue?"
"No. They're new. A parting gift from that bastard Victor Creed. Along with a reminder of my past."
"And? Isn't that what you've always wanted? To know your past."
"The price was too high."
"What price?"
"The truth."
"Well, I'm all ears. And I think you really need to talk about it if it bothers you this much."
"Bothers? That's not even half of it. You'll hate my guts when you know."
"No. You're too good a friend and teammate for that to happen."
"You won't give up until I speak will you?"

Jean smiled warmly at him and said "Nope. I know it will help and I care too much about you to letting you hurt this way."
"Fine then. Well, to make it short I never was in a lab. Or well, I was. But not as a guinea-pig as I've always thought. No, I was one of the guards! Together with Creed. We were rather cruel to the poor test subjects too. The unofficial name for the place was "The Slaughterhouse" so I guess you can see how cruel we were. All the guards had been handpicked by the guy running the show, a guy always refered to as just Mr Sinister. Dunno his real name. He was obsessed with genetics and other things I don't anything about. My job was to keep the inmates in line. That's why I voluntarily got the adamantium put into my body."

Logan stops, almost choking on tears because of his shameful past. Jean walks up to him, hugging him and saying "I'm so sorry Logan. But that's in the past. You're not that kind of man now."
"Aren't I? I'm still the violent guy, the one that goes more on instinct than thinking things through."
"But you don't kill or hurt just for the sake of it. When you have to do it, you do it in self-defence or to defend others. And I've seen how you are when you've done that. Plagued by guilt."
"Don't patronize me! Anyway, there's worse to come."
"I'm still here."
"We all took an oath. That whenever Sinister needed us we would come back and be on his side. Fight his fights. I didn't. Or he didn't bother to ask for it, and restore the memories he suppressed when the place got dismantled so we wouldn't accidently give the secret away, because I'm fighting with you now. And this is the result." he says, waving his arm around. "A slaughter to tell the Wolverine not to switch loyalties."

At that point, Logan walks away. Shoulders slumped, seemingly utterly defeated.