When you've lived as long as I think I have, you learn a lot of things. One of the main ones is that you should never think you know what's going to happen next, because life can change in an instant.

I should have that tattooed somewhere because I keep forgetting and stuff just keeps on sneaking up. Not that much can sneak up on me though.

I am Wolverine after all.

But I gotta admit, I never saw all this coming.

No-one did.

The way I remember it starting happened about a year and a half ago.

The old principle from Bayville High had just been elected President and Chuck, 'Ro, Scott, Jennie and I watched his induction on the TV. It was supposedly the beginning of a new age, an age of stability.

Translation from politician to human: Everyone better stop pretending to have super powers and go back to being freaks and misfits. But be quiet about it and don't bother the 'normals'.

The room just reeked of dread and worry, so I reached for the remote and turned it off, just as Kelly got to the part about the 'mutant problem'.

Chuck sighed almost inaudibly, then turned and left the room without a word. He'd been keeping to himself a lot lately so it was no surprise to anyone, but it certainly didn't do anything to list the mood in the room.

Thinking back now I wonder if he knew something. Chuck would never do anything to deliberately put his students in danger, but sometimes his need to protect them and everyone else made him blind to other dangers.

Soon, it became that you couldn't turn on the television without seeing some horrible crime a mutant had committed, or some 'expert' and I use the term loosely, claiming that mutants were not the next step in evolution, or even any step in evolution, but rather the product of today's polluted environment.

Posters began to crop up around town spouting garbage about how mutants weren't really human and if you see one you should report 'it' to the local authorities, all disguised as a public safety poster about what to do if you see an 'unsavory character'.

But things really took a dive the day before the attack.

I was banned from my favorite bar. And I didn't even pop the claws out either. Some jerk just decided that since I was in his seat, and by the way it was my seat, I've been drinking at that bar on and off since before he could walk, and that I could down 30 beers in a sitting that I was a mutant. I was about a heartbeat away from scaring that snot-nosed brat all the way back to his mummy when the bartender broke us up, and said,

"I don't want no trouble Logan. I know you're a good guy, but it's mighty suspicious. Just leave"

He actually said that, I didn't think anyone said that outside those bad action movies. I swear I must be going soft from hanging around all those teenagers, but I managed to leave there with only a growl and a broken glass. The danger room got the beating of a life time though. Reckon it would have cost Chuck a whole heap to fix it after I got through with it. Didn't matter though.

That night I got a call from Fury. Normally I don't even listen to him anymore, but he's damm convincing when he wants to be so I left that night for S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters and apparently some really important and life changing mission. I didn't really care, if it involved beating up some faceless lackeys and trashing government property it was good enough for me.

I should have seen right through him, but I forgot the second thing you learn from living as long as I have. People don't change without reason. In the past Fury always had an underlying motive to everything he sent me to do and I should have guessed that today would be no exception, but I didn't.

And everyone else had to pay the price.

I arrived at S.H.I.E.L.D late that night and was directed to 'meeting room number 4'. I hate 'meeting room number four'. Everything's made of adamantium so I only get sent there to receive a mission if Fury knows I'm not going to like what he's going to say. Too many previously wrecked meeting rooms I guess. As soon as I entered the room I heard the click of the lock inside the thick door close.

I can't believe I walked into such an obvious trap.

Fury's voice came over the speaker phone. He'd just gotten a call from inside Whitehouse contact that Project FOH, or Friends of Humanity to the normals, was passed that afternoon and as he spoke a fleet of 50 sentinels was launching to capture well known and powerful mutants around the world, and any others they came across on the way.

How the President of the United States approved a program that previously put many in jail without raising any eyebrows I'll never know. But he did.

By the time they let me out, Bayville was pretty much the way it was now, a ghost town. Except for the very impressive looking jail-like structure amongst the broken buildings and empty houses.

Once it was decreed that mutants were unsafe to live among normal people, the government needed a place to put them. Kelly pushed for Bayville to be the site of the new mutant 'education and holding' center, but they ended up putting it a bit more towards the major cities. More power to run the security system. A system that miraculously negated mutant powers within the walls of the facility and segregated Alpha level mutants like Chuck in individual holding machines and the other run-of-the-mill mutants in group cells.

Fury apparently didn't want his 'prized toy' being examined too closely by the regular government as they could find many reasons to decree that mutants be exterminated on sight if they portrayed me as the average mutant. A living weapon that's almost impossible to kill.

Fury apparently wasn't too happy about the new regulations, he wouldn't elaborate, but he said he would assist me as much as possible, which was just about short of actually doing something.

He did however give me a very useful set of blueprint to the new jail. I didn't ask and he didn't tell, but I just know some heads are going to roll when someone discovers these missing. Not that they did me much use when I got back to town, what with the power negating force field that surrounded the jail, but it was a start.

I decided I needed more information and more people before I tackled a job that big. Yeah I realize I'm going soft, but it all worked out for the better.

I went looking for one of Chuck's friends, a guy called Lensherr. Didn't find him but eventually found his daughter, a very useful young woman by the name of Anya who could control and turn herself into water. She was in a plane at the time of the first sweep and was out of range of the sentinels. Since then she had been building an almost mini-fort out of the remains of her old house and the houses on her street. She had gathered supplies and extra clothing and was trying to track down other people like herself that escaped capture. She'd found quite a few, as the commotion that the sentinels had caused capturing some mutants had driven others into hiding. When I began to help we found quite a few more. I may be getting soft and all team-work-ish but my tracking is still top notch.

Once we had a decent team, we decided to launch an attack on the jail structure. Using the blueprints Fury gave me, we managed to find a back way in and with some very thorough planning, thanks to Anya's little brother Peitro, who could go over every plan we made and find even the tinniest flaw many times in a short amount of time, we managed to pull off a pretty good break-out.

Sure we forgot that people were just going to scatter the minute they were let out, but that was a minor detail.

We went into hiding for a while after the break-out until the sentinels calmed down, which thanks to the paranoid government was close to three months. But we slowly got back to our routine of plotting jail breaks and recruiting new people for our little group. I had time to teach this group of kids some things about surviving in an environment like this and how not to get caught by sentinel and such.

It was on such a day when I was out with Pietro, who'd named himself Quicksilver and taken to talking very fast and moving around a lot lately, trying to find a new route to a near by department store that didn't involve sentinels, when he stopped mid step and put a hand to his ear. Early on I had sent Anya to raid the institute of any gadgets and hardware that may be useful as she was one of the few mutants that the sentinels seemed to have trouble locking on to. As such whenever we left 'Fort Fort' a name one of the younger residents of our base had given our temporary home, we each carried a communicator and a masking band, which somehow made our 'mutant signal' a lot weaker.

Peitro looked puzzled, then annoyed. I could hear the high pitched voice of his younger sister Lorna on the other end of the communicator. Someone had hacked our communicator signal. And not just anyone, someone named Sicalops. I half-smiled at that, it's about time four-eyes got his act together. Pietro turned to me.

"Should we panic?" he asked, looking thoroughly annoyed rather than concerned. I shook my head.

"Nah, get Anya to tell them to meet us at Bayville high tomorrow morning. We've just found some more troops." Pietro started at me for a half a moment longer before calling through to Anya to take over the radio and relay my instructions.

We headed back after that, and began to plan our journey. Bayville High is probably close to Cyke, knowing he'd flee to a familiar place, but from where we were, it was on the other side of the city. We decided to keep our team small, just me, Anya and Pietro, despite Lorna's protests. Being only 12 and surrounded by 'big kids' she always wanted to help. Her mother had sent her to stay with her older sister Anya when she got mutant powers, magnetism to be precise, at the tender age of 11. As of yet she was unable to lift anything larger than a paperclip, and as such was confined to helping with the radio only. Being in the middle of a war zone just didn't matter to this kid, she just wanted to play superhero.

Eventually Lorna tired herself out and we left late that night. It took us the better part of seven hours to make our way across town, avoiding the sentinels and grabbing some supplies along the way. Even after leaving so early we were still late, but wouldn't you know it, Mr. X-man himself was really there. Surprisingly so was Raven's son Kurt, who was looking a lot bluer these days. Forge I knew only slightly and the other two I hadn't seen before, and I took an instant dislike too. Anya took care of the introductions. However I didn't feel like waiting to be introduced and ripped off the head cover we wore for protection against the cold and to blend in with the dark surroundings more.

"Hey Cyclops"

If I didn't know better I'd have guessed I'd just hit Scott with a truck. This going to be more fun than I thought. Kurt just frowned and then a look of surprise crossed his face mixed with a smirk.

"Badger!"

…….

…….

Yep……a real barrel of laughs.

A/N:

Just a continuity note, this happens after first season but before second, and anything in the first season that had to do with Magneto, Mystique, Quicksilver, Rouge and Nightcrawler never happened, except for the Forge rescue, that happened around the time Kurt first came to the institute. So no Mystique, no Brotherhood, Lance and Todd are at the institute and Fred stayed at the circus.

For some reason I only get motivated to write stories at the worst possible time. Hence the writing in the wee hours of the morning the day before I have assessment due. But this is good news for the story because I have lots more assessment coming up. So lots more time I'm probably going to spend procrastinating. Now If only I could remember what was going to happen next…you didn't all hear that!

Amai Kitsune: Spyke was a good guess. You just reminded me I can't remember where Evan is at the moment! Lucky you brought that up. Now where to put him, outsiders or camp escapee? Do you have any preferences?

Spectra2: My fic only has one flaw? Wow I must be getting better! For some reason your reviews make me smile, even though it was left over a year and a quarter ago…..my bad!

DemonRogue: Yeah Cliff hangers suck. I hate them so much when I'm reading a story. But for some reason they pop up in almost every chapter of my story… I'll try and cut back after this chapter, just for you!