Chapter Eighteen:

Attack on the Mansion

Logan sat up in the ruins of yet another bed. He swung his legs over the side and, making sure his claws were retracted, buried his head in his hands. What had he been dreaming of? A lot of toxic green-yellow and a feeling of suffocation was all he could recall.

He decided to go down to the kitchen to distract himself from the puzzling nightmare. He reached the common room and found a young boy nibbling on a bowl of popcorn and watching TV.

He would watch a channel for a while, get bored, and then he would blink and the channel would change.

His name was Jones, Logan recalled from sitting in the infirmary with Jean that day looking over the children's files. If he was going to stay here he should be able to put names to faces and powers to names. He had a first name, but no one used it, not even him.

"Can't sleep," said Jones with out looking to him.

"How could you tell," Logan asked.

"You're awake," he replied. Logan shrugged. You couldn't argue with that concrete logic.

With that said he continued to the kitchen. There he found Bobby Drake finishing off a carton of half melted ice cream. He looked up at him warily.

"So," Logan said. "Boyfriend?"

"Well it's not what you may think it is," Bobby Defended. "It's just-It's not easy when you want to be closer to someone, but you can't."

Just then a new smell became present. Fresh green apples. He turned and just as he had expected, Fallon Vassar stood there in a white mid-Drift tee shirt and Goofy boxers.

She smiled. "Hey guys," she said. They waved none too actively as Logan went into the fridge. About five or six cartons of chocolate milk were stored there. In the next cooler unit was a bunch of fruit and health food, like left over watercress and cucumber sandwiches. Uck, gross!

"Got any beer," he asked.

"This is a school," Bobby said.

"I'll take that as a 'no'," Logan said. Fallon had reached in the very back of a bottom cupboard and was now setting a six-pack of Molson Gold on the counter.

Logan raised an eyebrow at her. "Good girl done bad," he said remembering jean referring to her as the co-founder of the Scott Summers Fan Club.

"It's not mine, it's a friend's," she said.

"Ruby," Bobby chorused.

"I can't drink alcohol," Fallon continued. "It interferes with my anima."

"You?" He turned to Bobby, Bobby shook his head and Fallon got a case of Dr. Pepper out of the cupboard. She gave a bottle to Bobby and put the rest back as Logan handed over the beer bottle.

Bobby blew on the neck of each bottle and handed one of the frosted over containers to Fallon and the other to Logan.

"Thanks," Logan said slumping down in the chair across from Bobby. "So, how long have you both been here?"

"Month and a half," said Fallon.

"And your parent's just sent you off to mutant school," he continued.

"My parents didn't send me," she said. "I was having some family trouble, and I was going to head into the city to get away from it, and that's when Scott came to find me and brought me back here. He was really the first guy I knew I could trust. My father left, and my step-dad was a real creep, my boyfriend cheat on me, and my big brother was always a jerk to me."

"What about you," Logan asked Bobby.

"My parents think this is a prep school," he admitted.

"Well I'm sure a lot of schools have their own campuses and dorms--"

"Jets," asked Bobby. Fallon killed her drink and said good night to the gentlemen.

"Well, about Rouge," Bobby changed the subject. "I'd like to be able to get closer to her, but-" Logan wasn't concentrating on what the boy was saying; he was looking at the green dot on his forehead. The boy hadn't noticed it yet. "What is it?"

Bobby shrieked in horror as Logan's claws shot out and Logan spun around in time to cut a tranquillizer dart exactly in two and the two halves fell into the carton of melted ice cream.

Bobby ducked under the counter as Logan's animal nature decided to take over.

The man dressed all in black hadn't noticed how big Logan was, seeing him slumped down in the chair so low, he thought he was dealing with two students. After seeing the man's claws extend one wouldn't have been surprised if the man had dropped dead of fear right on the spot, but some how he managed to suppress his own scream of horror and struggled to get a hold on his knife with a shaking hand.

Logan forced the man up against the refrigerator retracting one set of claws leaving the other for show. The man refused to stop struggling.

Teresa Roarke was in the room she shared with Kitty Pryde when the government dudes burst in. Kitty sunk down through her bed and floor into the lower level, and continued running dodging darts by going through walls.

Teresa was terrified. She screamed loud enough to break though the sound proof barrier in her room. Every one in the building had to cover their ears.

Teresa was the personification of her code name, Siryn. She could scream at decibels above human comprehension with super sonic frequencies. At length she stopped to gather breath, but the man shot her with a tranquilizer dart.

At that minute the door broke down with a thud. Peter Rasputin appeared in the doorway, and if you thought he was huge before, you didn't see anything. His frame grew larger and flesh transformed to organic steel, as shots were fired at him.

Peter's code name was Colossus, need I say more.

Once he was grated an opening, Peter plowed the armed men into the hall, and gently lifted Siryn into his arms and left the room stepping over the unconscious troopers.

Children were running around outside in the hall in a panic. He remembered a passage that could get them outside, where they could head to a secret bunker.

"???? ????," He directed the students. Everyone looked at him like he was crazy. Opps, in all the excitement, he'd spoken Russian. "This way!"

Unknown to himself Bobby was making the temperature of the room, and further than that, drop at frighteningly rapid pace, causing the fool proof heat seeking machinery in the helicopter above the mansion to go haywire. The enemy had no idea what was going on down there, and no idea how many mutants were in the building.

One of Logan's hands was lost from the man's line of vision as he managed to grasp his knife. It was then that the man realized, up until that moment Logan was trying to take him alive. The hand he couldn't see. Skint. Then only darkness.

Logan pulled his claws from the man's corpse and turned back to Bobby.

"You okay," he asked. Bobby nodded smally from behind the table his eyes just barely visible. "Come on let's go."

Fallon was running down one of the upper floors, a man in black a few feet behind, when she ran into some thing very, very hard.

She looked up from her position on the floor to see a huge metal human figure.

"Peter," she breathed in relief. He helped her too her feet as if she were some priceless artifact and had a metallic fist up in time to K.O. the guy who had been chasing her.

He noticed the three bloodstains, spaced evenly apart, on her white shirt and panicked.

"Fallon are you okay," he asked. "What happened?"

"Logan killed someone," she said lifting her shirt to show him that her skin wasn't broken, but a little blood was dripping from her pores. "I'll be fine. It happens on good Friday too."

Peter handed off Siryn and began ramming the wall where the passage should have been.

"I'm scared," said a little boy named Jake Lechery. "Are we going to die?" Fallon lifted him and tried to comfort him, and herself to some extent.

"We'll be fine," she said. "Trust me."

Bobby and Logan were on their way down the hall when they encountered more guards. Logan put a hand out to stop Bobby from walking into their line of vision.

"Stay here," he said and made his way down the hall.

Bobby wasn't about to listen to that. He slipped into the elevator and made his way up to one of the higher floors.

Students were running down the hall in their PJs.

In all the chaos he managed to find his roommate John Allerdyce.

"What's going on," he asked. "Where is everyone going?"

"The hell if I know," said John. "Petey Pure Heart and Mrs. Jesus are trying to get some of the kids to the bunker up on the hill."

"Where's Rouge," asked Bobby.

"I don't know," said John. With that Bobby took off, with John close behind.

As Peter and Fallon struggled to open the passage and keep the students calm Ruby, Carmen, Cameron, Katherine, and Opal showed up with a bunch of much younger students. Ruby was carrying an unconscious Amber Firestone.

The false wall came loose and Peter opened the door of the passage.

Amber was quickly handed off to Peter. What he would have done for the teleporter to have been conscious.

"We've got five soldiers on the way," said Katherine. "Take the kids and go, we'll hold them off."

"No way," said Peter. "They're using real ammunition now, no more darts, you'll be killed."

"Go," Ruby yelled. "The kids need you in case you run into any trouble."

"We'll see you at the bunker," said Cameron. "Or we won't." Peter nodded and took off through the tunnel with the kids.

Ruby replaced the false wall to conceal the passage. Little did they know that the troops knew very little of the secret passages so any one who had made it into them were basically home free.

"Well ladies," said Ruby. "It's been a great run." She stuck her hand in the center of the circle. "Let's do this."

They all followed her example and jerked their hands up and then down before breaking down the hall to meet the enemy.

Bobby, John, and Marie were on their way down the hall to the door when they were faced with five men dressed in black.

At that moment Logan leapt down from the second floor taking down three of the troopers down, stabbing and slashing at the combatants.

Bobby dropped into a crouch, not wanting to see Logan in action again. Marie couldn't look away; Logan was a part of her. She wanted to see what was happening to him. John couldn't get enough of it. He wanted a piece of the action for himself.

Once Logan was well and finished, not a man was left standing. They continued down the hall to the passage Logan shut it and turned to face the rest of the guards. He paced to them claws extended.

"You want to shoot me," he yelled. "SHOOT ME!"

"Don't shoot him," a man's voice interceded. A man stepped out of the shadows. "Is that you Wolverine?"

Logan's eyes questioned, but he waited.

"Why you haven't changed a bit," the man continued. "I on the other hand, time has changed." With that he pulled off his spectacles.

"You guys we've got to do something," Marie yelled.

"Yea," said John. "Run like hell."

"They're gonna kill him," she said.

"He can take care of himself," said John.

"Bobby," she pleaded.

That's when Peter made his way out of the tunnel with the children. He hated the fact he couldn't wait for Fallon, Ruby, Cameron, and the others. He prayed they were alright as he pressed the children along.

"Why this is the last place I'd expect yo see you, Wolverine. I was unaware that Xavier was taking in animals. Even animals as unique as yourself," the man continued. That's when the wall of ice began to form between them until it was too thick to see through.

Logan ran his hands up and down it looking like a child separated from his parents. He turned to see Bobby, Marie, and John. Bobby had his hand pressed to the wall generating and sustaining the ice crystals.

"I'll be fine," he assured them.

"But we won't," replied Rouge. So he followed them thought the passage as the wall of ice was blown to bits.

The passage let out in Scott's garage. They made for a blue Camero.

"I'm driving," John said making for the front seat. Logan pushed him aside.

"Maybe next time," Logan replied pushing the boy out of his way and climbing in the front seat. The two boys in the back, and Marie riding shotgun. Bobby leaned forward and stated the obvious.

"This is Cyclops's car."

"Oh yea," said Logan extending a single claw, shoving it into the ignition, and starting the car. They sped off into the darkness.

"Who was that," Marie asked.

'His name is Stryker," said Logan.

"What did he want," asked Bobby.

"I can't remember," Logan replied.

"Where are we going," asked Marie.

"Storm and Jean are in Boston," said Logan. "That's where we're going."

"My parents live in Boston," said Bobby.

"Good," Logan replied.

Marie's hand went to the dog tags that hung around her neck.

"These are yours," she said giving them to Logan.

"Thanks," he said.

She noticed the blood crusting his hands and got worried.

"Don't worry," he said softly noticing her looks. "It's not mine."

The man had called him Wolverine, as if he was some kind of animal, but he was wrong. His name was Logan, and he was human to the core.

Stryker stood outside of Cerebro with some of the troops working on opening the door when one of the soldiers approached.

"Many of the children escaped through tunnels that weren't on the plans," said Lyman. "But we managed to capture a few."

"How many," asked Stryker.

"Six," said Lyman.

After a few moments John leaned up between the front seats.

"I can't stand uncomfortable silence," he said and pressed a button on the dashboard.

*Bye, bye, bye*

A completely out of date song that no one had heard in a million years blasted on the radio and they all groaned and hurried to cover their ears. John pressed another button and the radio turned off and a cell phone like contraption popped out of the dashboard.

"I don't think that's part of the stereo," said John. Logan removed the device from its holder.

They drove on for several hours with out stopping. The children were tired and hungry, and in need of a rest stop, and being teenagers they had no problem voicing their complaints to Logan. They were all still in their pajamas/underwear, so stopping would raise *way* too many questions.

It was a little before 5 A.M. when they reached Boston, and they made it to Bobby's house at first light. Bobby found the key under the mat and opened the front door.