Finally, the lighthouse appeared in the distance. Wolverine keyed a surveillance control and the lighthouse appea4red on the screen.

"What the?" But he was at a loss.

The lighthouse was a mess. On one side, all the windows had been broken out. On the other side was a giant gaping hole, slightly lower than the windows.

"Oh, kids, what have you been up to?" He wondered out loud, most of his concern focusing on Kurt. Wolverine knew Kurt very well. And in Wolverine's mind, you cant really know a person until you've seen their darkness; that place within them that scares anyone who dare look.

What Wolverine saw when he looked at Kurt now was sheer strength. The strength to be a 'non-passing' mutant in a humans world.

Wolverine knew that he, himself, wouldn't want to carry that burden. Wolverine had enough trouble holding on to his humanity at times, without the extra burden of physically not appearing 'human'. He was sure that there would have been times it would have forced the elf out of his head.

And there in lay the problem. The Elf didn't get out of his head. He got focused and motivated instead.

Wolverines mind drifted back to the last time they sparred with blades at the Xavier institute.

He had always told Kurt to strike true, that he could take it. And one day, Kurt's best was too much for Wolverine to take. Not that he really told that to the elf. Ever.

"Vas dat it?" The flippant boy grinned. "I thought you were faster than this."

Wolverine had seen this ploy before. Kurt was trying to get him worked up so that he would make a mistake. It had worked before.

"Stuff it Elf." Wolverine swung with a heavy overhand right, his claws extended.

Kurt grinned and dropped low; enticing Logan to over-extend his reach and become what Kurt lovingly referred to as "throw bait". But Logan knew Kurt too well to fall for that this early in the game. Instead he dug down with his left in an exaggerated and razored uppercut that Kurt practically rolled his eyes at.

Kurt swung his sword so that it caught all three of the upcoming claws and he leaned his body weight across the blade, refusing to teleport away and let Logan have the advantage of having him on the run.

Kurt rode Wolverines claws to freedom.

"Vatch dis." Kurt whispered quietly and intimately as his face passed Wolverines.

And when he was fully air-born under Wolverine's power, he spun in place and brought the sword back in a flash. What had been acceptably close but well controlled was now remarkably close and unacceptably dangerous.

Wolverine brought his claws up; Kurt could take his head off from this close.

But the sword wasn't flashing up, it was flashing down, and in the one nanosecond that it took to realize that, Wolverine knew he had lost.

He didn't feel the sword flash across his calf and sever the tendons, but he felt the leg give out as it crumpled to the floor beneath him. But the sword was still singing it's latest tune. The low slash from between the legs had segued in to an overhand strike through the left bicep, and curled back to strike just a half-inch deep, right above the jugular.

And something in Wolverine snapped. The animal was alive and hungry. He tasted blood and his thoughts were just a static rush of disease.

Somewhere inside he roared and attacked through the pain, launching himself with his good leg and twice the ferocity Kurt had ever seen.

"Dis is more like it." Kurt told him "Dis is Vat I vas talking about."

Wolverine had lunged forward making an attempt at a piercing jab to Kurt's face.

Kurt parried with minimal force, knocking the blow off target, and ran Wolverine through with one swift stroke of the sword.

He placed the shot through a lung, as Wolverine had told him to, instead of higher and to the left, through the heart.

Kurt twisted the blade before pulling it back out. He knew that this would slow Wolverine's healing factor and therefor his response time.

"But really. Cut loose. Let me have it. For Real." Kurt told him, bounding backwards, up and away from Wolverine.

Wolverine looked crazed. A liquid fire swelled behind his eyes and he tore toward the Elf in a fury of spittle, rage and razored steel.

Kurt almost laughed. He surely didn't realize the extent of the damage he'd managed to inflict. In his mind Wolverine was an immortal and beyond such trivial concerns as an Elf with a 'strait-razor' as Bobby called it.

Wolverine, the man, so far as men go, is a good one. Wolverine, the animal, while not an animal to be tangled with lightly, was simply no match for Kurt, the man.

Kurt threaded his sword between Wolverine's claws on his right hand and flipped them both. In a lightning flash, he had freed the sword and planted it firmly through Wolverine's midsection, pinning him, painfully to the floor.

Wolverine convulsed on the sword and it shocked Kurt. He pulled it out.

"Are you. . ." Kurt swallowed. "Okay?" He reached out with his three thick fingers.

"Are, you?" Wolverine gestured towards Kurt's forehead and Kurt realized he was bleeding from his face and forehead.

"I think. . ." Kurt fell to his knees. "Not." He smiled and looked his pierced and bloody midsection , then at Logan.

And Logan laughed. Just once at first, but then, honestly and freely as Kurt joined him.

Kurt fell to the floor. "Oh, man, I'm really hurt." Kurt sighed at last.

"Yeah, me too." Wolverine conceded.

And they both laughed at each other again.

"I was trying to kill you, you know, at the end there?" Wolverine breathed in ragged, labored efforts.

"Den I'm not really hurt all that bad." Kurt shrugged, looking at the horrible syrupy pools they were leaving on the floor.

"Nah." Wolverine agreed. "A lot less than most." He nodded. Then smiled. "And you could have had me." His eyes were more alive than Kurt had ever seen them. "In the real world, use that heart-shot, instead of the lung, and I would have been a dead man." He told him.

And Kurt had swallowed hard. He hadn't suspected that he was that close. "Wolverine, I. . ." He was concerned and apologetic.

"Don't sweat it kid." Logan was pulling himself up slowly "This was always coming. You just graduated. I can't teach you anything more."

Logan felt his one lung filling with liquid. "Now let's get to the infirmary." He smiled wanly. "Beast'll love this."

Logan's mind drifted back to the present. His blades felt tense in his arms. The animal in him hungered for a piece of Kurt ever since he had beaten him that day. The man wanted no part of it. But this weapon, the W.E.E.D. – if it truly leads to psychosis and wild behavior – as it seemed to be the case (from the looks of the lighthouse) then there was only option; Pray that thing went well.

And Logan wasn't much for praying.

The small jet hunkered low and set itself down gracefully just outside of the debris field that now surrounded the lighthouse.