Initiative 2028
Dark Wolverine
The man known as Daken Akihiro looked much different than when he first appeared on the scene. He had stopped painting on his 'tattoos' some years back, and let his hair grow out of the mohawk or rooster tail he had maintained. He was a handsome figure, in many ways, and he was well aware of the admiring looks he drew.
They were going to Madripoor, the specially built jump jet soaring up into the edge of space, then down to the island near China. The strike team were from the Shadow Initiative, the covert team that did the dirty work that the President couldn't admit to.
'And I lead it,' Daken thought sardonically from where he sat in the co-pilot seat, 'lucky me.'
The combat armored American Son, Gabriel Stacy, was piloting the craft. Once driven insane by the bio-chemical effects of being born with Green Goblin DNA he had been treated and finally cured. Now possessed of mild superhuman strength he piloted the armor for his savior, the US government.
Finesse was operating the electronic countermeasures station with her usual skill, the black haired young woman's hands dancing across the controls. Jeanne Foucault was a genius, a polymath who graduated MIT at fourteen, then went to work for Norman Osborn. Still a trainee she was recruited for Avengers Academy, but when President Richards took over she willingly switched sides again.
Taskmaster wasn't the original criminal and trainer, and if Daken's nose was right 'he' wasn't even a man. But the costumed agent seemed to have the original's photographic reflexes, as well as much of his physical abilities. But who she was and what she really wanted were a mystery. All they knew was she was a willing mercenary working for Richards.
Bonebreaker saw Darken looking at him and sneered, then the heavily cyborged man looked away. One of his dad's old enemies, Bonebreaker was part of the Reavers and had fought the X-Men several times. He 'died' in a rogue Sentinel attack, but his head was eventually recovered. Recreated by Donald Pierce he was virtually a slave until Pierce finally died.
AS the jet began to descent to Madripoor, Daken activated the headsets everyone was wearing. "Mission briefing," he said calmly, "how many of you have heard of Weapon X?"
Predictably, Finesse answered first. "A illegal government project headed up by the CIA, created Wolverine, at least according to the conspiracy sites," she said briskly.
"Accurate, as far as it goes," Daken agreed, "but Weapon X has continued to operate, mostly covertly. They created the female clone of Wolverine, as well as trying to wipe out mutants with enhanced soldiers."
"Good," Bonebreaker muttered.
Daken ignored that, "I tangled with them back in the day, thought I destroyed the branch. But it turns out the leader, Malcolm Colcord is alive and offering enhancements to subjects from a chop-shop in Madripoor."
"And we're shutting him down," Taskmaster said, his voice distorted by the mask.
"And seizing the research data," Finesse noted flatly, the woman watching her controls. "We are being targeted by surface to air missiles," she said, "attempting to jam."
"Crap!" American Son blurted, checking his own sensors. "Confirmed!" he barked, "I'm attempting to evade."
"How do I get out of this outfit?" Bonebreaker bitched as the plane dove, racing down to try to evade the missiles.
"Feet first," Daken growled, grabbing at the dashboard. He brought up the weapons systems and tried to target the missiles.
"Rotate the ship," Finesse ordered, "I'll jam their tracking sensors."
American Son yanked the ship to the side, jerking them around but giving Daken a shot with the cannons. Lining up the missiles Daken opened fire, the modular weapons blasting out at the incoming attack. The first flight of bullets missed, but he compensated and nailed them with his second shot.
"More missiles!" Finesse yelled.
"Get us down, fast as possible," Daken ordered American Son. "Brace for impact!" he yelled to his team grimly.
They came down nearly at sea level, skimming across the water as they raced towards the island. Hapless boats and junks were bowled over and sank as they raced by, the jets barely keeping the modified fighter level. Finally the nose dipped, the engine's gave up the ghost and they splashed down just out from the harbor.
American Son pulled the switch to blow the hatches, then the team scrambled out onto the hull before taking off. The armored man used his boot thrusters to take to the air even as everyone else evacuated the craft onto nearby boats.
"Just like I remembered," Daken growled, the black and tan garbed man calmly clouting a protesting fisherman, probably angry he had jumped on his boat. "Team, sound off!" he yelled.
"I'm fine," American Son declared, "and I kept Boner from sinking."
"Bonebreaker!" his reluctant passenger yelped.
"I'm fine," Finesse said, "and I have negotiated passage to the shore."
"No problems here," a disgruntled Taskmaster growled, clearly bogged down by his bulky uniform and cape.
Daken smiled grimly, then calmly ordered the fisherman to take him to shore behind Finesse and Taskmaster. He had his suspicions why the two were together, but it didn't matter right now. They reached the docks and quickly climbed ashore, then they quickly headed inland.
"You didn't kill anyone," Bonebreaker noted with a sneer, "getting soft?"
"Do you want me to start with you?" Daken offered politely, popping his twin claws from the top of his hands. Seeing his fearful reaction Daken popped them back as they skulked along a building, "Killing wasn't necessary."
"So where are we going?" Taskmaster asked, having abandoned the soaked cape but still wearing the armored, padded costume.
"According to the CIA intercepts, Colcord has set up in Lowtown, not far from where the Princess Bar used to be," Daken noted, silently wondering if Malcolm had intended it a covert slap to Wolverine. If so, it had failed.
"That's all I needed to know," Banebreaker declared, grabbing American Son. Before the hero could react the cyborg twisted his head around, breaking his neck with a wet snap.
"Scatter!" Daken yelled to the others as he popped his claws and leaped at Bonebreaker.
Bonebreaker moved with startling speed, grabbing Daken by the throat and holding him away from him. "You think you're so tough," he laughed, "but you're nothing compared to your dad. I'm going to find Weapon X and have them fix me up, then I'll track down Logan."
Daken felt his neck break and went limp, gambling that his enemy would underestimate him. He was right, Bonebreaker casually tossing him aside and marching off, looking for Weapon X. He lay their in the dirt, in agony as his body knitted itself back together.
Finally Daken rose, stumbling a bit as he went over to where American Son lay, broken on the ground. He was shocked to see him still breathing, his eyes glazed with pain. Gently Daken eased his fist under his jaw and popped his claws, putting the man out of his misery.
Daken knelt a moment, studying him silently. He hadn't LIKED American Son much, but he respected him a bit. Much like Daken he had a past he was trying to put behind him, and also like Daken he couldn't get away from it. Daken put the visor down over the Son's face and stood, looking where Bonebreaker had gone.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
The lab wasn't hard for Bonebreaker to find, all he had to do was look for the powered up guards. And they weren't that tough, so once he clobbered them and got inside, he asked to see the boss. A group of sculpted soldiers held him at gunpoint, and soon the big man appeared.
Malcolm Colcord didn't look that scary to start with, in fact the grey haired man was slightly stooped and getting old. But looking in his eyes Bonebreaker saw the kind of hatred that drove him, a fury that knew no limit.
Colcord listened to his story, nodding grimly. "You want Wolverine dead?" he smiled coldly, "I like the way you think."
"Just being a cyborg isn't enough," Bonebreaker admitted, "I need more. You have weapons, technology developed to stop him, right?"
Colcord nodded slightly, "We'd have to almost completely rebuild you, but yes. WE could mask your sent, give you energy claws, the whole bit." He tilkted his head to the side, "How are you going to pay, though?"
"Pay?" Bonebreaker looked surprised.
"Revenge is good, but we have to pay the bills," Colcord smiled, "and your augmentations won't come cheap."
It took nearly a hour of dickering, but finally Bonebreaker bargained him down to a cut of any mercenary work he did. Privately he thought Colcord really did want Logan dead, and the money was just not to seem like a softy.
"All right," Colcord nodded, "let's get you to the lab. We'll have to strip out a lot of those cheap ass cybernetics and rebuild..."
Just then, the lights went out. "What the hell?" one guard yelled, then yelped in pain.
"Crap!" Bonebreaker shifted his vision to infrared, but the enhanced soldiers all around him gave off heat like beacons.
Out in the darkness there was a sound of metal sliding out, sknit!
"DAKEN!" Bonebreaker yelled furiously even as he saw someone dropping the soldiers with horrific ease. 'Too fast,' he realized, 'Daken must have Finesse and Taskmaster with him. But...'
"Daken?" Colcord looked at Bonebreaker, barely able to see in the dark, "What...?"
The lights came back on and what had been a room crowded with augmented soldiers was instead just containing five people. Daken had blood or oil splattered all over him, Finesse had liberated someone's sword and Taskmaster was using twin knives.
Daken, dressed in his almost Wolverine like costume, smiled pleasantly. "Well, Malcolm, it's been a long time," he noted.
Bonebreaker hesitated, then babbled, "It was all a act, Daken! I was just stringing him along so we could capture him!"
"Shut up," Daken clouted him one, thankfully not with his claws. "You'll answer for what you did to American Son later."
"We need him alive," Finesse warned as Daken advanced on the old man.
Daken looked down at Colcord, who was practically cowering before him. "And Richards will just use him to make more killers," he mused thoughtfully. He popped his claws and struck, then Colcord's head rolled away from his body.
A few minutes later Daken, Finesse and Taskmaster were outside, the building in flames, Bonebreaker dead as well as all the research data inside destroyed. "We're going to get in trouble for this," Taskmaster noted as they walked away.
"You can hang this on me if you like," Daken shrugged, seemingly not bothered by the idea.
Finesse frowned, the attractive woman looking at him in confusion. "Why did you decide to do this?" she asked.
Daken shrugged slightly. "I've done a lot of things I regret," he said calmly, "I took this gig to do better. Besides," he added, "American Son deserved better."
"Fair enough," Taskmaster nodded, the three walking on.
"Blame it on Bonebreaker?" Finesse suggested after a moment. "He betrayed the team, big fight, place went up in flames. Simple."
"I like the way you think," Daken grinned, "Now, how do we get home...?"
To be continued...
Notes: I like villains trying to redeem themselves, though admittedly Daken is a bit of a stretch. Still, I think he's a interesting and complex character.
