"FAREWELL, MY YAKUZA" Chapter Two - Imprisonment


The lights had returned, but it came in the form of amber lamps that bathed the basement prison cell around him with unsettling dreariness. Summers awoke to the muffled sounds of conversation outside, echoes of Fujimoto's voice in the adjoining hallway. 'And you say this craft is top of the line?' The answer came in Japanese. 'What about the onboard computer - does it have the database I need?' The field leader shook off his vertigo and attempted to peel his face off the cold cement floor, both of his feet struggling to withstand his own disorientation. 'Bypass it,' came the subsequent order, before Fujimoto's tiny steps ascended closer in their direction. The world around him was a shade darker than he would have liked, but Scott's unpleasantries were buried as soon as he realized his visor was still firmly attached over his eyes. He didn't consider that anything but an advantage. The shadow unmovingly occupying the corner of the room could only be Logan, but aside from the reverberating glow of the electroshock bars containing them within the room, the two men were alone in their prison. Outside the rest of Tokyo, the sun had died and was already replaced by the cover of darkness. For Scott, however, time had dragged on for so long that it was no longer a measurable device in his mind. His watch was missing. He wondered at the hour. He wondered if Jean had picked up any of his distraught halfway across the world... He wondered what the hell Fujimoto was staring at...

'Gentlemen...' the stout figure began, patting his stomach with a sordid grin. 'Welcome to our sub-basement containment cells. I hope you've had a pleasant sleep... I do apologize for cutting business short... You see, the grand scheme had always been more involving than wasting away our finances in your little school, though you greatly honor me with your attendance. Let me introduce you to your personal ward-' Fujimoto tossed a yen at the electric bars, and suddenly a fierce crackle of immense voltage erupted in the space between himself and his prisoners with almost blinding persuasion. The bars were clearly something that shouldn't be toyed with. '20,000 volts are pumping through that wall every millisecond, a little less than the speed of thought. Stepping through it will turn your skin into dust, Mr. Summers, and heat the adamantium inside your friend's body to a good 300 degrees Farenheit. My own invention. You see, Fujimoto Industries is not only a pioneer in the plastics industry, gentlemen. My real trade lies in the biochemical research and wholesale distribution of modified genosuperior organs. The demand for mutant parts in the black market is astronomical these days. Heck, with all the urban legends that mutation is becoming contagious, our customers are practically licking the last drop of blood off of our products. The Church of Humanity. The U-Men. I'm sure you're familiar with their recent interest in harnessing superhuman endowments in the likenesses of our kind. Everyone wants to be just like the X-Men. Like -us-.' That sordid grin spread fast into a satisfied smirk. 'Or did I fail to mention earlier that I'm one of you?'

Their captor daintilly dabbed at the corners of his lips with a silk handkerchief. 'In any case, don't make yourselves too comfortable. Your fate lies elsewhere within our facilities this evening. You're to pay our incineration chambers a visit in my honest attempts at packaging the remains of your cadavers inside freeze packs.' Fujimoto turned to go before Cyclops could even get a word in. 'Oh, I almost forgot. I hope you don't mind if I borrow that remarkable aircraft of yours. I'll have particular use for it in tracking down the rest of your teammates.' A flippant hand gesture and the guards turned to escort Fujimoto outside.

The memory hit Logan hard enough to stagger him, and did so, his body slumping into the corner. He could still smell the doctors...the anesthetics... They'd used -a lot- of drugs. They'd doped him up enough to keep him still, but he remembered it all. That was a mistake. Logan adhered to the corner now, unmoving, not a sound, save his labored breathing, passing his lips. Cyclops had been out for hours - the Canuck could still smell his blood, still hear his heart struggling to beat on cue. What had Fujimoto done? It hadn't taken long for his eyes to adjust... Everything had been put back like they'd never been touched, save for his watch and transmitter that had become standard issue for any X-Man. Kenji had been doing his homework just like they...like Cyclops...had, and Logan felt like that was too much. Xavier had been too trusting in his beneficiaries, and now they were paying for it. Oh well, one more -bad guy- to trounce... As soon as he found a way out. Logan could hear footsteps coming down the hall... The heavier ones had to be Fujimoto's...an image inducer doesn't disguise weight. He listened to them converse - he was fluent in Japanese - and held back a snarl growing in his gut.

He took the time to search for an escape, though Scott was more the tactician than he. He could feel the heat of the bars from where he sat, and checked chancing them off his list. The floor was concrete...on top of titanium. Granted, he could do it...but he'd be digging all day, and from the way Fujimoto was talking, they didn't even have three hours. Scott moved. Logan still hadn't uttered a word, just let the darkness silhouette his form. Fujimoto stepped in front of the cell, 'Gentlemen...', and went about issuing them their fate. Wolverine could feel it, the demon...the one that kept him from truly feeling human, the one that harbored all his rage, building up inside him, and it manifested itself as a sniff...and almost into a laugh when Logan realized what he'd just smelled. His own flesh...his blood...hell, he could smell the soap Scott used...all on Kenji Fujimoto's breath. That bastard. Fujimoto, as if cued, dabbed at his lips, and that smile was just too hearty. A cannibal. Xavier wanted funds from Hannibal Lector. By the time he'd made this revelation, both men were gone, and he was standing, a hand falling to Scott's shoulder. "We're leavin'."

Cyclops let his gaze fall over his shoulder, eyes weary beneath those ruby plates. He propped a chin up and resumed eyeing their barrier coldly. "Sounds like a plan." Frodo and Sam never had it this bad. Hell, Aragorn and Legolas probably never went under the knife quite the way they did. But Scott's silence usually indicated that he was hard at contemplation, and that was a good a sign as any. Fearless was back on track. Scott zipped his jacket over his tattered shirt and open chest, which had been bandaged up nicely from the neck on down. The pain was still throbbing over his right pectoral, but at least he could still breathe properly. They must have left all of his lungs intact. What the hell did Fujimoto want with them? That was the puzzle Scott was dying to figure out the most. As soon as they got out of here... Cyclops advanced forward, basking in the heat of the pulsing lines that were gridlocked in front of them, looking for the source of their origin. "The mechanisms keeping these bars in place are probably electro-conducive in nature, otherwise, they wouldn't be so straight. Their source path is here somewhere..." He looked, and looked, and got as close to the bars as possible without frying the leather on his jacket. "Bingo... Magnetic casings housed in rubber sleeves. The current is circulating from a closer source. A main power supply, maybe. We're must be in their basement." Summers turned around and mulled over their options at that point. "I can do this. It's like shooting skeet." And everyone knows...Summers had practiced doing just that a thousand times before in training.

"So long as my blasts are on target with the bolts, we won't have to worry about the ping pong effect. The current will be interrupted as soon as circulation is cut off. It's risky, but it's a worth a shot. Unless, of course, you plan on digging us out of here..." Logan's unamused look was translated as an affirmative nod. Scott then paced further up and down the room, peering into the broad hallway before them. "Security cameras on the western facade. We'll probably have five seconds before the guards call for backup." And with that, Cyclops took a step back and hovered two fingers over his visor's trigger, setting the width of his blast to a quiet four inches, aiming carefully for the tiny metal cylinders lining each side of the walls which were shooting out voltage. He'd need Logan to step away from the bars so that the adamantium in his body wouldn't become the next conductor. Electricity, after all, has a notorious property of wanting to leech on to the nearest metal once it's set loose. Essentially, what Cyclops was attempting was suicidal at best... Unless it worked. If it didn't, the stray lines would electrocute them both in a manner of seconds. Wolverine would just have to trust him.

Cyclops stilled his frame and held his breath for complete control over his muscles. "I'd advise you to duck right about now." Thoom!... Thoom!... Thoom!... And so it went, each bolt fixture noisily clattering to concrete, hailing the guards' attention. Optic blasts haphazardly bounced off the walls but never touched its master. Darkness fell across the two men once more as their light source died, but the curling smoke over Scott's visor indicated that the two of them were still alive. And standing. They were free. A few seconds later, guns clicked in their direction, followed by a bevy of armed guards that blocked their entrance. Now they could play.

The man was good. He'd hit all his targets with little effort it seemed...which scared Logan...only a little. But he knew they wouldn't have a few minutes to spare... He'd heard a guard down the hall on the northern block of cells, choking on cigarette smoke...two more on an adjacent hall playing cards. They'd be there as soon as the first shot was let off...and he'd be waiting. Payback was a bitch...and Logan was her bastard child. As soon as darkness took the room, as the beams dissipated from existence, he let his claws free, let loose a howl that would curdle the freshest blood, and let out into the hallway. Guards swarmed him from every corner, guns drawn, yelling orders and curses and whatever else they could think of... But what they saw that day...if they lived...would be told to their children, and their children's children. They saw a monster. Wolverine leapt into the fray, slashing wildly, downing anything that came into contact with his blades. Fujimoto had eaten a piece of him. It wasn't new...it was just surprising, as was the first time it happened. The man...thing...that first did that didn't get away with it either.

Logan heard that familiar sound, a concussive optic blast, and knew Scott had taken his lead and probably would be done with the other brigade before -his- squad had hit the floor. Their methods were so different yet had the same effect...people fell. Logan felt the sting of bullets rain on his back, yet the rage was great, the demon supplying him with the fervor to take every hit, and deliver twice-fold. He swept his right hand across the air, and guns were sectioned off into metal, his left hand taking the first throat it found. He took the man off his feet, using him and his flack jacket as a shield, until he reached another cadre of guards. He tossed his shield at one, dropped another with a swift roundhouse kick to the temple. He heard the guard's helmet sizzle against another set of electro-bars, though the sounds of screaming from another man drowned out his partner's cooking. His claws sank deep into the guard's thigh and he twisted them before yanking them free, a trail of thick blood following the weapons.

It felt...right. Logan stood over bodies...dead and dying, injured and inactive...and smiled. They wouldn't be the first...he could smell every individual guard in the building now...and they wouldn't be the last. But he didn't want them. Claws rushed back inside their homes, and he took another wayward sniff, inhaling all he could before locking on to the scent he wanted. "Th'bastards movin' fast. We ain't got time fer flunkies." He snapped his head back to Cyclops, knowing he would probably have said the same, and broke around the corner before the next set of guards could interrupt.

The Terminator. There was an appropriate nickname for someone like Scott who underwent such trials. In fact, the emphatic leader's advance through the narrow passage was so deadly and proficient that scarcely any difference lay between the man and the machine. He was a one-man laser cannon, mechanical in his movements. Thorough. Tactical. While blood may not have splattered forth from his victims as flashily as Wolverine's did, the field leaders' injuries were all dealt internally. And the hurt lasted twice as much. Under his tight dictation, these men would live. Scott strategically crippled his victims so that they remained alive but sustained so much pain from the pummeling of concussive blasts on their knees and chests that they might as well have wished for death. It was his own brand of punishment.

To counteract the terrible cacophony of screams from Logan's victims, Cyclops remained a pillar of tranquility in the massacre, his cleanly-shaven visage brooking no such emotions as his partner did. With a simple nudge of his temple, Scott's optic blasts followed the direct path of his gaze and totalled the army of men in front of him, his own vision blurred crimson from the thermal projectiles. He could see the smoke seething through the sides of his ruby lenses, could memorize the pattern of sounds the racks and pinion gears made against his face, could feel the tiny pistons violently roiling inside his visor to the beat of the carnage. Armed bodies were rapidly knocked off their balance and sent soaring down the empty hall, landing on polished concrete, sometimes on other bodies.

The sounds of consecutive cannon blasts were as destructive as the pained howls from the other end of the hallway. Scott bowled over two men at a time, sometimes three, until the entire army of guards was no more, leveled flat by his astonishing accuracy. One could have sworn this was a clone war being fought by two lone Jedi. No bullets could touch them. But while Scott's aim proved infallible when he was calm, there was no hiding the look of disapproval on his face when the man studied Wolverine's damage in the silent aftermath. Cyclops was a tactician who aimed to injure. Wolverine was a killer who didn't just stop at broken bones. "Logan..." The man's face clearly spoke against his partner's tactics, but the expected lecture would have to wait for a later recital. Kenji Fujimoto was still in the building and dangerous, and from the looks of the gaudy basement plaque that stared them in the face near the exit, they still had seventy-five damn stories to ascend before they could beat their enemy to the Blackbird. "Let's get the son of a bitch."

Fifty...a hundred... How many men had he felled that day? Wolverine hadn't kept count...it didn't matter...if they kept coming, the number would keep increasing. Guided by olfactory nerves that a bloodhound would envy, Wolverine trekked up countless flights of stairs, painted countless walls with countless pints of blood. He'd put a considerable distance between himself and Summers, though the emphatic thud of ambient energy let him know that the man was still within earshot. He settled, only for a moment, straining his acute hearing on the heartbeats of the soldiers. He could hear them pounding, almost trembling...he could smell the adrenaline...fear stunk. It made him smile, toothily, the chase becoming all the more fun. Fujimoto had about ten floors on them from what he could gather, and without the opposition they garnered, would make his escape far before they reached the top. Damn. Logan's rage only grew at the revelation, tossing another lifeless body aside and storming onto the next floor.

That's when it hit him...that smell...that unmistakable stench that had weakened him so much earlier. The female stood defiant at the end of the hall, unmoving, her mouth agape and the sulfuric gas leaking between her lips. That bitch had kicked a hole in his neck. It would pale in comparison to the one he was going to dig through her. 'Sir, the mutants have escaped and have manage to make it to the pen levels.' Kenji Fujimoto stepped out of his office, a wicked smile etched on his holographic visage, 'Excellent. I must say, I am a scary judge of talent.' He meandered past his impetuous worker and made his way to the executive elevator, which would take him straight to the top of the building. 'But sir...what should we do?' Fujimoto pondered the question for what must have been a second, then the doors slowly closed on his words. 'Blow the pens...'

A high-pitched scream erupted down the halls, along with the crash of flesh on metal. Wolverine stood defiant in the doorway, blood trickling down his face, his eyes locked on the form of the female bodyguard. She lay unmoving atop the doorway Logan had used her as a -key- for, and the mutant stepped in to make certain his prey was finished. He was not prepared for what he saw. Mutants...hundreds of them...chained to the walls, floor, ceiling...whatever could hold them. Claws retracted, Logan could do nothing but stare, waiting for his partner to show up and deduce what the hell this was all about...