In the dictionary, the word 'mutant' is defined as relating to or produced by a mutation. The word mutation is defined as a relatively permanent change in hereditary material involving either a physical change in chromosome relations or a biochemical change in the codons that make up genes. Sounds pretty complicated to most people. In fact, if one were to ask a regular person on the street, they would say that they had never seen a mutant before in their life.



Logan was one of these mutants. His power was highly accelerated cellular regeneration that he just called his 'healing factor'. It allowed him to take a tremendous amount of punishment since his body could just keep repairing itself. Other than that, Logan possessed super enhanced of smell, hearing, and sight as well as three razor sharp adamantium claws on each hand that could pop out with a simple muscle command. It was these claws that had earned Logan the title Wolverine among his fellow Weapon X agents.

Right now, Logan was looking at the official autopsies of the bodies he'd discovered and shaking his head. He was holding three folders, one for each of the radiation victims found so far. He flipped through each one. For the most part, all of the victims showed the same symptoms, nerve damage having killed them within a few hours.

"Saddening, isn't it?" Logan's Irish partner Sean Cassidy said from behind him. Sean was a mutant also with a scream that could literally split mountains as his power.

"Yeah." Logan frowned when something in one of the photos caught his eye. "You see that?" he asked Sean.

"What?"

"Logan popped a claw and pointed it at a small, rectangular object laying on the ground next to the victim's body. "Playing card," he growled. "It's the only thing out of place in the entire apartment."

"Yer right, laddie," Sean said. "Somebody should check it out."

"I'll see about it." Logan turned to his red-haired colleague. "You have somethin' for me?"

"As a matter o' fact, I do." Sean handed Logan a disk. On there is the connection I found between the three radiation victims. Ye might want t' check it out."

"Yeah. Thanks Irish." Logan palmed the disk, and then slid into his computer console.



After having been with Brotherhood for 2 weeks now, Rogue finally thought she was fitting. Everyone was nice to her (with the exception of Lance who was still a little ticked off at her for knocking him out) and Raven had been teaching her how to better control her powers as well as a few martial arts techniques. Sometimes, Raven and the other members would leave her at the house to go 'take care of some business', which was puzzling but not very serious.

Rogue resumed her workout, delivering a series of punches and kicks to a training dummy in the gym. After a few minutes, she went to the middle of the large room and began to practice her flips. Back flips were very easy for her as were front flips. It was the flips with no hands that gave her trouble so she practiced that.

"You might want to put a little more energy into that right foot," said Raven from behind her. Rogue whirled around.

"Raven? I thought you wouldn't be back for another 5 minutes."

"I finished early." Raven walked over. "Listen, I have to talk to you about something."

"Sure. What is it?"

The metamorph sighed. "Tell you what. Why don't you change and meet me in the computer room."

"Um, sure." Rogue paused. "Is it something bad?" she asked.

"You'll see."



"Breaking News. In the last week, there have been three deaths due to radiation poisoning in the Queens area. Two of the victims were female, one male. The Police have not issued a statement yet which is causing some citizens concern."

The screen switched to a middle aged Asian man in his front yard.

"Yeah," he was saying, "of course I'm worried about radiation. I mean, who wouldn't be. We expect that the local police would inform us, ya know, tell us about somethin' like this." The man paused to take another smoke on his cigarette. After blowing out the smoke, he continued. My wife and two kids, they're scared. Real scared. And so am I."

It was then that Remy turned the television off. On every station there was rumor and speculation about the mysterious radiation deaths. Remy didn't blame the police for keeping the whole thing under wraps.

He felt homesick. It was like he was an animal out of its natural habitat. This whole place felt wrong.

Jean-Marc had done a couple of background checks and the only common denominator between the three radiation victims was a woman named Carol Wong. They all knew her in one way or another so now, he figured the best way to get to the bottom of this was to find Carol Wong. It looked like he wouldn't be returning to the Thieves Guild for a while.



"Do you know anything about this Carol Wong person?" Logan asked Sean after an intensive afternoon of research.

"All I know is in the disk I gave ye. She has t' have somethin' to do with this."

"I won't disagree with ya' Can we get an APB out on her? She's not at her house and no one has seen her for weeks."

"Don't ye worry. A lead 'll come soon."

Logan pushed away from the computer. "I hope so. In the meantime, lets you and me start lookin'"



"Okay Raven, you can tell me what it was you wanted to tell me," Rogue said when she entered the computer room.

"Yes, I guess I'd better." Raven sat down in the computer chair and opened a file. "I want you to take a look at this," she said.

On the screen, a picture of a young man, maybe 19 or 20 appeared. He was wearing a long, floor length duster over a red shirt with a loose bandana and black jeans. He had nice, brown hair that fell down to his temple on the sides and wore sunglasses.

"He's cute," Rogue blurted out before thinking, causing Raven to look sharply at her. Wrong answer.

"Cute, he may be but he is also very dangerous. His name is Remy LeBeau and he is an operative for a Louisiana-based organization called the Thieves Guild. He is our enemy and right now, he is in New York."

"Wait a minute," Rogue interjected. "How is he our enemy?"

"He just is. Listen, I'm sure you've heard of something called the Eye of Death."

"I heard Pietro mention it once."

"Good. That is a very valuable diamond that was stolen from us by the Thieves Guild." Raven knew she could have made up a better lie but Rogue would probably believe it.

"So why not call the police?"

"The police have no power over these people. Rogue, you are a very powerful woman and I want you to commandeer the effort to find Remy."

"You mean you want me to go look for this guy?"

"Exactly. I want you to find him and bring him to me."

Rogue paused. "OK," she said finally. She turned to leave with a puzzled look on her face.

"Oh, and Rogue," Raven called out, "Don't believe anything he tells you."

"Um, sure. I won't."

Rogue walked away thinking about just how much her life had changed in the past few weeks.