xXx

Banner looked up as the door to the lab opened. Lisa. He looked back at his work. On one monitor it showed the taping of the footage from earlier in the day, and next to it were six screens with readouts on different functions. Behind him the centrifuge spun quietly to itself.

"What's going on?" Lisa asked casually. "I brought you some coffee. Black, two lumps of sugar on the side."

"You've been here too long," Banner smiled ruefully, not taking his eyes from his work. "Thank you, Ms. Sendry."

She looked over his shoulder. He glanced at her, and at the screen. "You probably shouldn't watch that," he said.

"Why not?" she asked, unable to take her eyes from the footage.

Three surgical drills on mechanical arms lowered to where Logan lay. They punched through his flesh into the gaps in his adamantium spine, and he jerked as his spinal cord was severed in three places.

"Testing the regeneration of spinal column cells, his ability to regain limb control," Banner said quickly. He moved to snap the monitor off.

"Don't," she said, moving a hand to restrain him. Her eyes were fascinated. "I couldn't wrap my mind around the idea that he could heal so fast." She watched. The drills twisted. Then she heard the tinny recording of Bryant's voice.

"Say 'alpha' when you feel pain anywhere but your spine," Bryant's voice said. A blowtorch popped on and started searing off his toes. This went on for ten seconds, and she could see the glittering purified adamantium of the bones of his toes. The flames played across the soles of his feet. It was less than a minute before she heard the hoarse echo of "Alpha" from the prone form; several holes in the seared flesh showed gleaming steely bone.

"Is that metal?" she asked, awed. "Does he have metal in his body?"

"Don't worry about that," Banner said quickly, turning the monitor off.

"This helps me with the cure?" she asked, a peculiar hungry expression on her face.

"Yes," Banner said shortly. "Shouldn't you be sleeping? I can give you some medication if that would help."

"I do not want to be drugged," she said sharply. She relaxed. "Doctor Banner, you had ethics training as part of your schooling, right?"

"Yes," he said.

She sat down on a stool next to him. "What is evil?" she asked.

He sighed. "Evil is to take pleasure in the pain and ruin of others, I suppose. There are a lot of definitions for evil."

"But really only one taste," she said, looking right into his eyes. "I'm afraid, doctor."

He reached to put a reassuring hand on her arm, then hesitated. "We will find a cure for you," he said.

"You will find a cure for Tymaz Nine," she corrected. She shivered. "I'm not afraid of that."

"Are you afraid of Bryant?"

"No," she said. "Only of what he showed me."

Banner was silent. "Come with me to my office," he said. She rose to follow. He picked up his coffee and headed for his office in the back.

"I need to recalibrate some of my equipment," he said. "It's a night-time duty. Gotta shut off the main programs and let the diagnostics take over the primary power grids in here." He flipped a few switches, then typed fluidly and easily on the keyboard. The lights dimmed to a faint red backup light, and the massive computers began to run tests and checks.

"No cameras?" she said with a wry smile.

"Or microphones."

She sighed. "Bryant told me that Logan was an animal they found in the snow. Worked his way through government agencies in Canada, and they didn't know what to make of him. The Project got wind of him and snapped him up. They took the animal and inlaid a veneer of civility."

She thought that over, then looked Banner in the eye. "Bryant said that when Logan got free, he took me from my family and set up an apartment to satisfy the nesting and paternal instincts of the animal in him. That he used the veneer the Project gave him to say I was his daughter and get me into school and buy me clothes and so forth. Bryant found out Logan stole a lot of money and set up an account in the Cayman islands, and we were living off the interest." She hesitated. Banner sipped his coffee and said nothing.

She looked at him, and her eyes were haunted. "All through when I was a child I wrestled with impulses, Doctor. Impulses that led me to do things…" she gathered her nerve. "When I was ten I tortured a cat to death. At an even younger age, I would go down to the basement of our apartment building, where the janitor left big sticky pads that the rats would get stuck on. I would watch them struggle and squeal. I would watch them for hours as they slowly died. One time I took a cat down to fight with the trapped rats." She looked away. "Normal children don't do this."

Banner nodded. "Go on."

She sized him up, gauged his reaction. She nodded. "I told Bryant about this. He said it was a natural reaction to Logan's inhumanity in raising me. He told me I'd be able to reclaim life among people if I symbolically exorcised Logan from my life and allowed the Project to manufacture a cure from his life force. Bryant told me Logan wouldn't be harmed overmuch, and then he would be put in a high-tech zoo sort of complex, safe to live out his days. I wanted to believe him."

"But you can't." Banner sipped his coffee.

"I've been frank with you, Doctor," Lisa said. "Be equally frank with me. Logan won't survive this, will he."

"No."

"The Project is looking for more than a cure for me, aren't they."

Banner's eyes answered the question for her.

"I knew that," she said softly. "From the moment Bryant brought it up, I knew it in my heart. And something in me liked the idea." She shuddered. "It's like I'm two people. I'm Logan's daughter, and I'm this other thing, this other person; when I shot him to end his fight with Creed, something in me bloomed. The stricken look on his face; he watched me pull the trigger. That hurt him more than the gun did, more than Creed did. And that fed something inside me." She took a deep breath. "Something in me is evil, Doctor, whether I like it or not. Animals aren't evil. I know I'm not Logan's daughter, and I won't believe he tainted me, much as Bryant wants me to. But Logan won't tell me where I come from."

Banner said nothing.

She blinked. "When Mystique took my shape, it was as if I had finally polarized into two different people. I saw the coldness in my own eyes, and I realized she was copying me, that I looked like that. Mystique helped me see who I really am, or who part of me wants me to become."

"You have a long life ahead of you," Banner said. "You're still young. You may have to fight this for the rest of your life. But it's worth it." He took a deep breath. "Everybody has something they're willing to trade their soul for. I don't know what to tell you about your history, or what could have gone wrong that you have this evil side. I will say this, though. Don't give up. Stay as human as you can. Don't trade your soul to escape the conflict." He chuckled grimly. "If you ever do, though, you'll be snapped up as an agent for Bryant."

"What would you trade your soul for, Doctor?" she asked him.

"What did I trade my soul for," he corrected. He looked at her with oddly empty eyes. "Let's just say I gave my all to science and leave it at that."

She nodded. "Looks like I need to have a talk with Logan."

"To find out where you came from?"

She nodded. "It's time I knew." She left the small office.

"Before it's too late," Banner said, almost too softly for her to hear.

January 4, 2002

Two hours to get an audience with Bryant. Nine hours for Bryant's beauty sleep and the visitation request to go through. Half an hour to get the logistics handled. Logan would have less than fifteen minutes to work out what he needed to work out with Lisa.

Part of him knew it wouldn't take that long.

Logan heard the subaudial static, and he rolled off his bunk to look for its source. He picked up the tiny comm that was hidden under his bed. It was the size of a pencil eraser. He put it against the back of his head as he lay back down on the bunk.

"Logan," the voice resonated through his skull. "I've seen the experiment logs. Tomorrow they plan to cut your finger off to see if your body can regenerate normal bone. You're running out of time."

"I see Lisa in half an hour," Logan growled. "Let me do that and I'll go with you. They have all the data and samples they need."

"Glad to hear it, my friend," came the odd buzz of Kurt's voice. The communication ended. Logan let out a breath he didn't remember holding.

xXx

Logan sat at the long table in what looked like a meeting room. He waited. The door opened, and Lisa came in. He stood, and smiled at her. He opened his arms.

She hesitated, then she gave him a quick hug and stepped away. He sat down, his face troubled.

"How they been treatin you, darlin?" he asked.

"Can't complain," she said, managing a smile.

"I don't know how else to say it," he muttered. "I'm leavin. Bryant may be your best hope, but he's nothin but trouble for me. They have enough samples to work with, and if I stay here any longer they'll kill me."

"Are you just going to walk out the front door?" she asked.

"Nope," he said. "You gonna be okay?"

"I'll be fine, Logan. I hope you make it."

He paused. "Things are never gonna be the same between us."

"No, Logan," she agreed.

"Look at you, all grown up," he whispered

"Tell me how I came to you," she said abruptly.

He shifted, glancing away.

"It started here, didn't it," she said, listening to her instinct. "But not here."

"I was escapin," he said. "When we ran across you, I was… well, I wasn't anywhere between here and the 'States."

"I may never see you again, Logan, and we're running out of time," she said, her voice low. "Tell me, for God's sake."

"I wish I could," he said helplessly. "I wish I knew how." He hesitated, sniffed, and glanced up.

Her eyes followed his glance as Kurt dropped from the dark rectangle in the ceiling, landing without a sound on his oddly misshapen and dexterous feet.

"We are out of time," he said in a rush. "Bryant has been monitoring your conversation. We have seconds."

"Darlin," Logan said, extending his hand to Lisa.

"What, you think we're getting out of this room?" she asked, alarmed, realizing she was about to be in the middle of a vicious battle.

Logan's eyes grew hard. "I'm sorry, darlin," he said, and he launched across the table at her.

At the same time, the door flew open, and Kurt lunged for Logan. Logan closed his hands around Lisa's shoulders; Kurt tore the veil between this world and the underspace. Logan would not let go, would not release, would not surrender Lisa. She screamed as Kurt pulled them out of space. After an agonizing split second there was a brutal tug.

Soldiers in heavy body armor piled into the meeting room to see nothing but a mist of swirling smoke that stank of brimstone as it swirled slowly under the lights.

xXx

Wrenching pain, like a blindsiding car crash: Lisa was sure she had died.

She was laying on Logan's chest, his hands still gripping her shoulders painfully tight, as though death itself could not force him to let go. She heard the dull groan of the peculiar dark man, not far away. She heard a hissing slither that could be a lava flow. A peculiar empty heat washed over her.

She opened her eyes.

The sky… was not a sky.

Instead it was a peculiar wash of violent flame, like a chemical fire seen from too close. A peculiar ripple of colors slowly shifted above the landscape. She pried herself free of Logan and stood, shaken but rapidly recovering from the transit.

"Impossible," came a voice made of iron, a voice that brooked no defiance. "They are not in the cage."

She glanced to the side and saw a heavy cage made of red-hot iron. The bars were printed with strange sigils stitched with the flame of the earth's guts. She looked the other way and saw a man, tall and savage and noble, his cruel face drawn up in anger. Behind him, misshapen hunched creatures lurked. Demons.

"Belasco," she said coldly, his name springing to her mind unbidden, "we are not your prisoners."

Kurt sat up, clutching his chest, coughing wisps of brimstone. Logan began to stir, and she saw burns creasing his flesh. Only she had survived the transit unharmed.

"Yer right," Logan managed, turning to look at Kurt. "There he is." Kurt could only nod.

Belasco towered six and a half feet tall. His red armor gleamed dully. He held a massive spear, and his flaring red eyes summed them up contemptuously. Logan grimaced a smile when he saw the heavy staples that held Belasco's head on his neck; damage not entirely repaired.

"So you remember me," Belasco said, looking directly at Lisa. "Has it all returned yet, Illyana?"

"I've heard enough," Logan grunted, rolling to his feet. "That name don't mean nothin now. Kurt, you up?"

"I'm up, my friend," Kurt managed. He threw off the concealing wrap, and he climbed to his feet. He wore a tight sleeveless vest that showed off his wiry blue arms. His forearms were wrapped in metal bracers with peculiar buttons on them. He wore loose pants and light boots. At his side was a slim blade, like a rapier with no crosspiece or basket. He drew it, and Lisa noticed a wiry tail lashing behind him as he crouched, ready to fight.

Logan nodded, his jaw set. "Stay back, Lisa. We settled him once. We'll do it again." He sprang.

The first demons moved to stop him, and his claws unsheathed with the disturbing hiss of steel through meat, sliding along metal bone. They swept down, and the first demon spun howling as its arm was sliced through at the shoulder joint. Logan kicked him down and slammed his claws through the faces of the next two as Kurt bounded up into the air, lightly kicked off Logan's shoulders, flipped, and landed slashing at Belasco himself.

Belasco casually caught the slash across his forearm, the blade tracing a thin pale line on the dull armor. Belasco laughed, and shoved the massy spear through Kurt's space. Kurt hopped, landing on the spear shaft and expertly putting his blade through Belasco's left eye. Belasco roared, leaping back, viscous ichor trailing in the air as though it was unwilling to fall to the ground. Kurt landed and rolled, then was surrounded by demons. Down, thrust, through, around; he escaped the knot, and whipped his blade around him with a speed that gave them pause, fearful of his sting.

Logan slaughtered. His claws tore through knobby hides, ripped limbs, slashed through faces and chests, tore and pierced. He had not yet let go, but he had to keep moving so the piles of dead and dying would not slow his footwork. He bled. He did not care.

Belasco cupped his hand over his mutilated eye; the ichorous venom of his blood oozed out past his palm. He snarled. "Elfin trespasser," he boomed. "You have moved through the underspace that is my realm too many times to go unpunished. Now you have added insult upon insult." He moved his hand away, and the eye blazed with feral light, whole again. "Now you shall be punished."

He snarled a few sounds that could be words in a place where there was no light or sanity, and Kurt screamed as he was rammed through space sideways; he crashed to the ground inside the cell. "For those who would move through my space," Belasco chanted, "there are ways to be moved through my space."

More demons moved on Logan, and more; a wall, a sea. Yet he did not fall. He tore and danced, leaped and slashed. He could not be stopped. He could not be downed. He was pure death, his claws all around him, puncturing and tearing and shredding. Still the demons came, more afraid of Belasco than oblivion. Here, Logan took no care to preserve life. Here he killed, fast and without remorse. Restraint set aside, he became what his enemies feared.

Lisa stood alone, her fists clenched, the unwholesome winds of this world eddying around her, whispering to her, bringing memories and laying them at her feet. She had never seen Logan like this… yet, somehow, she had.

"The sense of smell is closest to memory," she murmured as the gory slaughter drifted further afield. Kurt's breathing was a whine, and he clutched his chest, bright red blood streaking the close velvet fur of his face and throat. The cage pulsed and flared around him in time to his heartbeat.

A few demons crept towards her. She turned to face them, unafraid and wondering why she was unafraid.

Logan slashed around behind him to find there were no demons near enough for his claws. They had pulled back. He turned to face Belasco.

Belasco loomed above him. "Very impressive," he said, gesturing the way he had come, at the piles of wounded and dying demons. Odd dark creatures the size of cats had scurried from the shadows of the rocks, from the underneath places. They were already feasting on the fallen. Logan squinted at Belasco as the gashes across his face started to knit and seal. He put a hand to his ribs; felt his adamantium bones, the flesh creeping back over them.

"Let's dance," he growled.