Land of The Silver Sun Part II

by darkstorm5000

The XMen are in Japan for Logan and Mariko’s impending nuptials, but the happy couple might not even make it to the altar if HYDRA has their way. Plus, an XMan is changed forever in the erupting conflict. Part 4 of 4 posted.

3. One Way or Another

Land of the Silver Sun pt. II

Written by Darkstorm5000

Disclaimer: The X-Men and related characters in their various incarnations are the property of Marvel Comics and Marvel Enterprises.

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Part 3- One Way or Another

Location: Tokyo, Japan- Ginza District

In this exclusive section of Tokyo's most popular tourist area, sits an opulently-built high-rise dining club. Which, was currently playing host to the pre-wedding party of one of Japan's most important social figures, Lady Mariko Yashida, and her husband-to-be the westerner known as 'John' Logan. But unknown to them or any of their attendees, on a nearby rooftop a modified, long-range sniper's rifle has been loaded and trained on this club down below, a high-powered rifle that was being firmly held in the hands of one of HYDRA's deadliest agents, Lady Hydra. This smiling blonde masked-figure, who was carefully looking through the lens of a rifle's scope on top of the rooftop adjacent to the club, was garbed in her own unique uniform consisting of a skin-tight dark-green, black, and yellow leather outfit.

She had been born Carol Danvers, but thanks to the post-hypnotic suggestion implanted in her psyche, she was no longer that woman. She had now reverted completely back to her villainous Lady Hydra alter-ego, both in mind and in body. And as Lady Hydra, she served the terrorist organization known worldwide as HYDRA as one of its top-ranking operatives, dedicating herself wholly to HYDRA's ideals and to the subversive group's cause of establishing it as a major global power; whose ultimate goal was to one day control the entire planet's vast natural, economic, and military resources and thus allow it to then dictate its own terms to the governments' of each and every one of these diverse nations around the world.

By killing the head of one of Japan's most powerful and influential families, Viper (who also held the title of Madame Hydra) hoped to strike a blow to the heart of the Clan Yashida by setting in motion an internal power struggle. HYDRA hoped to then use the ensuing dissension and strife amongst these powerful families vying for control to secure their own position amidst Japan's criminal underworld. And, Lady Hydra had hoped to accomplish this important mission entrusted to her by Madame Hydra, as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Utilizing the assassination techniques that had been drilled into her, Lady Hydra intended to strike at her target like a serpent, which HYDRA loosely drew upon for its namesake, and then disappear from sight.

Down below, international entertainer and superstar Alison Blaire was currently in the middle of a most impromptu performance in front of the guests in the club, as she passionately sang a ballad that she had dedicated to Mariko and Logan. But with the music from Alison's song, along with her husky and sultry voice filtering throughout the club, none of them would hear the 'click' outside of the rifle's trigger being pulled (which was virtually inaudible anyways). Nor, would they be able to hear the muffled shot from the rifle chamber ringing out in the nighttime sky, as a uranium-depleted bullet now headed through the silencer attached to Lady Hydra's rifle and straight for Mariko.

Well, with the exception of one individual in the club.

"M'iko-get-down!"

In that split-second moment between the shot being fired and the bullet speeding towards them, those words were the only ones that Logan had the time to utter. His ultra-acute sense of hearing had still allowed Logan to detect the sound of the rifle being fired outside, and his unbelievably fast reflexes in turn permitted him to turn to his right and forcefully shove Mariko down to the floor of the club.

'Skrackt!'

Was the surprisingly unremarkable sound heard as the powerful .50 caliber round, which Lady Hydra had just discharged from her weapon, penetrated one of the numerous 15 foot-tall window panes that lined the high-rise building's exterior, cracking the glass but not shattering it. But, instead of Lady Hydra hitting her intended target, it was Logan who wound up taking this bullet meant for Mariko Yashida. It slammed into his chest and ricocheted internally off of his unbreakable ribs, with bullet fragments bouncing around through his internal organs before they ripped out through his back and right side.

This armor-piercing projectile violently hit Logan with such incredible force that it took him up completely off of his feet, and launched him a few feet backwards through the air almost like a rag-doll. Which, is where he flew into one of the round and ornately decorated tables behind them, landing with a loud 'Crack-Boom-Bam!'

"LOGAN!" Mariko screamed out first and then just gasped, as she sat looking up from the club's floor, which Logan had just shoved her down onto. All she could do was watch, as the man that she loved was cut down before her very eyes, all the while a sick, cold feeling having now risen up inside of her.

"Crap,'djoujustseethat!"

Jubilation Lee exclaimed next, as she and Scott Summers sprang to their feet when they saw Logan being gunned down, knocking their chairs backwards onto the floor.

"Mein Gott!"

Kurt Wagner proclaimed, both as an expression and as a beseechment to a higher power, as he also saw the man he had probably grown closest to in his time with the X-Men now being assaulted in such a horrifying manner, and he and Ororo immediately rushed over to Logan's side.

"Logan, no…"

Rogue barely managed to mutter, as she, Remy Lebeau, Peter Rasputin and Kitty Pryde were the last to stand up from their table.

While Peter went over to inspect the window were the shot had come in through, Remy proved that even without his staff handy he was always prepared for an emergency. Which was evidenced by the deck of cards in his pocket, of which he quickly pulled out three to hold in his hand and have them ready for a bio-kinetic charge at a moment's notice, as he followed Rogue and Kitty over to Logan.

While the shot had shocked all of the guests who bore witness to it, it had also managed to send an understandable sense of panic through the club. The majority of those invited, to what was supposed to be a celebration, now hastily made their way towards the exit of this expensive and luxurious nightspot at the urging of the Clan Yashida's private security guards, whom were on hand and were about a dozen in number. They had been stationed all around the room the entire time in an undercover capacity, having mastered the uncanny ability to seemingly blend in with the background of their surroundings and go unnoticed, until now.

As the guests continued to file out of the huge club in an orderly fashion, which was fairly amazing considering what had just happened in there, Alison came over from the stage where her performance had been abruptly halted. As she approached the X-Men, Alison trailed behind Leyu Yoshida and saw that Mariko's personal bodyguards were now gathering around Mariko and Logan, and that Dr. Ororo Munroe had also jumped into action by putting her vast medical knowledge and years of training to use.

Thoroughly examining Logan, Ororo first carefully checked his vitals for a pulse, but found nothing. In the meantime, Mariko had crawled the few feet across the floor over to the broken table where Logan was now laying. She simply knelt beside him with his other hand tightly grasped within hers, as Ororo unbuttoned Logan's blood-stained suit coat and dress-shirt and prepared to begin CPR on him. Mariko was so overcome and traumatized by the sheer brutality of what had unfolded in such a short amount of time, that she just knelt there staring down into the hauntingly vacant expression left on Logan's face. She desperately searched for any sign of life in Logan's still open eyes, eyes that were now just blankly staring up at the many crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling up above.

"He's gonna be alright, isn't he?" Alison now said, as she came up and stood next to Scott, fully aware of Logan's famed healing factor.

But, Alison's tone quickly became more uncertain of that fact, once she had the opportunity to see all of this bloodied carnage up close and personal. Especially, now that she was getting a first-hand glimpse of the gruesome entrance wound that the high-velocity round had carved and tore out of Logan's chest.

Meanwhile, the rest of the X-Men stood silently around Logan, while Mariko's personal security team went to secure the club and the rest of the building, also going to call the police and paramedics in the process. Like Remy, after the bullet had hit Peter's own defensive instincts kicked in. He went over to the window, and in the process, immediately converted his own body of flesh-and-blood into organic steel. This massive conversion, which left Peter's already bulging muscles just that much more fantastically over-sized, wound up splitting the seams in the coat and pants of his suit, even though that was the last thing of any concern on his mind at the moment. Now, as the fully armored X-man Colossus, he stood by the windows and scanned the nighttime skyline, searching for any sign of further unusual activity.

And in a matter of minutes, he found one.

"I see someone moving over there." Colossus said aloud to those in there with him, warning his teammates as he pointed up through the shattered window at a shadowy figure on a nearby rooftop, which of course drew their attention.

"Alright, once help arrives and gets Logan situated, we'll fan out and see if we can catch the shooter." Scott replied, now himself instinctively jumping into leader-mode.

"You're (cough) not going to do anything."

Everyone still in the room was shocked when they heard this statement, which came out as a bare whisper in a very familiar gravelly-voice. They turned back down to look down at Logan, who had now suddenly regained consciousness after his healing factor had managed to seal up the wounds left in his body. Logan blinked his eyes a few times, and then started to move his arms and legs around slowly in an attempt to sit back up in the debris, which previously had been a huge solid-wood table with a fine linen tablecloth on top of it, but was now just a mess covered and soaked in his blood.

"Logan, you must remain still! You have been shot." Mariko told Logan, as she sat next to him and continued to hold his hand tightly in hers, now able to breathe a tiny bit easier once she saw her beloved stirring again.

"Yeah, I know." Logan said a little bit louder this time, responding to the fact that he knew that he had been shot, but definitely not agreeing with Mariko's assessment that he should remain lying down, as he continued to struggle and finally fought his way back up to his feet.

Despite the fact that he was standing back up after such a miraculous recovery, it was obvious that Logan was in absolutely no shape to do anything, as he was barely able to keep his balance on his own. But, what was more frightening to his fellow X-Men was the fact that Logan was now coughing up blood, which was coming out of his mouth and trickling out through his nostrils.

"(cough) Get me up there, Petey. It's payback time." Logan now grumbled, as he staggered towards Colossus and the cracked window that the armored Russian was standing next to.

"Logan, you're talkin' crazy!" Rogue now exclaimed, as she stood next to Remy with the others and was simply unable to fathom what Logan thought that he was proving by this macho display.

"Logan, stand down until the EMT's get here. That's an order!" Scott now also firmly stated as he followed behind Logan, looking out through the window himself in an attempt to catch sight of the individual that Colossus had pointed out to them.

"I ain't got time to debate this (cough)…with you Summers. Only thing I need right now is five minutes alone with that trigger-happy asshole up there." Logan stubbornly replied without even bothering to turn back and look at Scott, as he slowly continued across the club over towards the window, and also continued to intermittently cough up blood.

"To do what? Go up there 'n gettin' yourself killed again, only this time permanently?" Jubilee now pleaded with Logan with tremendous worry in her voice, as she stood next to Leyu.

Leyu was now kneeling down beside Mariko and trying to console her teary-eyed cousin, who held reservations that were similar to Jubilee's, and who had been justifiably upset by the prospect of her fiancé now going to confront this attempted-murderer in his current condition.

But it was all to no avail, as Logan still continued wobbling forward. He ripped the bloodied, burnt-orange dress-shirt that he was wearing off, only to reveal an even bloodier white muscle-shirt underneath. Which, had a large bullet hole over on the left side of his chest, and also had other holes over on the right side of his back and close to his kidney areas, showing where the bullet's fragments had shredded through his body and then exited.

"God Logan, please just stop!" Kitty now loudly implored of Logan, as she herself was also on the verge of tears at having watched Logan being brutally gunned down right in front of her, and then witnessing its grisly aftermath, "We all get it, you're super-mega-tough, you don't have to keep tryin' to prove it to us. But right now, you look like you're about ready to fall over, and whoever's up there's way too dangerous for you to go 'n butt heads with."

But whereas the others had been essentially ignored by Logan, Kitty's lamenting plea had finally managed to get him to pause for a moment. And at the very least, she had gotten Logan to turn back around to acknowledge her.

"Well, that sonofabitch up there's about to find out I'm as dangerous as they come, Short-stuff!" Logan both yelled and growled simultaneously back at Kitty, with his growing infuriation at what had just happened only serving to further emotionally distress her. Kitty now started to cry, and as student deputy-leader, Rogue took it upon herself to come over and try to comfort the youngest member of the X-Men.

Meanwhile, in an inconceivably short amount of time, Logan had stopped coughing up blood. Now, a menacing scowl came across his face, one of an animal preparing to strike and pounce on his prey. For those who had seen it before, they now knew that Logan had been pushed beyond the limits of his own self-control, and that The Wolverine was on the verge of flying into one of his uncontrollable berserker rages.

"Pete, fast-ball special! NOW!" Logan shouted at and ordered Colossus, as he gave the armored-mutant a look that could have burnt right through him.

Colossus looked over at the other X-Men, and then back at Logan, and simply shook his head. He too thought that it was mistake for Logan to try to take on whoever was responsible for the shooting in his current condition. But, Colossus acquiesced and did as Logan had asked of him, picking up his teacher in his metallized right-arm, while using his other armored-fist to lightly tap the cracked window next to him and break it out completely. Colossus then spun around a couple of times, before he sent Logan hurtling up through the nighttime air like a baseball, as the incensed mutant now soared upward towards the opposing rooftop where the rifle-shot had come at them from.

But, as soon as Logan had been ejected from the club at a remarkable acceleration to meet the attempted murderer of his fiancée face-to-face, those left behind were soon about to learn that they too still faced a threat of considerable danger to their own lives from this most venomous individual.

"Nightcrawler, I don't care what Logan said. I want you and Colossus to teleport over there and give him a hand, the rest of us'll be over there soon enough." Scott was saying to Nightcrawler, Colossus, and to the other X-Men as he began to formulate their battle stratagem, when Jubilee interrupted him.

"Um, I don't know about you guys, but all of a sudden I'm not feelin' so hot." Jubilee suddenly said, as she had begun to feel very flush and was now having difficulty breathing.

"Now that you mention it, Ah'm startin' to feel kinda dizzy myself, girl." Rogue responded to her best-friend, as she stood next to Kitty and they too started to feel a bit light-headed and queasy to their stomachs.

In that moment Mariko, Scott, Alison, Kurt, Leyu, Ororo, and Remy all, with the exception of Colossus, realized that they were also experiencing similar symptoms of nausea, dizziness, and severe fatigue. Surveying the room, in a matter of seconds Scott was able to immediately discover what the cause of this phenomenon was.

"Poison gas (cough)…coming in through the air vents." Scott verified for them, as he pointed up towards the ventilation grates high above them in the club's ceiling, which had a barely visible mist slowly filtering into the immense room that now caused him and the others in there to start coughing violently.

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While the X-Men were left to deal with this latest crisis back inside of the club, a Wolverine was now preparing to face a most dangerous foe, after having been launched across a busy Tokyo-street more than twenty stories above it.

"Alright bub, get ready to have your ass handed to ya!" Wolverine shouted, just as he landed on the adjacent rooftop, his clothes still covered in his own blood even though his healing factor had stopped the external hemorrhaging from his body.

Now that he was up there with the shooter, Wolverine had an unfettered view of the guy that pulled the trigger, and saw that 'she' wasn't a guy at all. Nonetheless, he still got an exceptional look at the woman who had attempted to kill his fiancée, and who had wound up hitting him with that bullet meant for Mariko.

At first sight, it was readily apparent to Wolverine that, if looks could kill, then Lady Hydra's tempting physical features could have easily knocked any man dead. She stood before him on the rooftop garbed in a sleeveless, olive-green leather-leotard that was trimmed in black and yellow, and which left very little to the imagination. Lady Hydra's straight and lengthy blonde-hair draped down just below her shoulders, where it rested gently against a tiny cape in an olive color-scheme similar to her uniform that it was attached to.

Lady Hydra's ensemble was accessorized by a pair of stiletto, thigh-high leather boots in the same olive-green tone, a matching pair of nearly shoulder-length leather gloves, and an olive-colored mask that covered most of her face and concealed her true identity from the rest of the world. This was in spite of the fact that everyone who had known Carol Danvers, thought her to have died years ago.

Wolverine now also noticed that across the chest of her outfit was a highly visible HYDRA insignia, a symbol which he had seen before, and that consisted of a skull with serpent-like tentacles protruding out from underneath it.

"Well, I had intended on dealing with you later, but I suppose I can kill you now just as easily." Lady Hydra replied, as she stood on the rooftop with her left hand on her hip and looked Wolverine over, standing roughly fifteen feet away from him.

In her right hand was a small remote switch, which she had just moments ago used to activate the small poison gas bombs located in the air ducts of the club. And lying on the rooftop right next to Lady Hydra was the high-powered sniper's rifle, which she had also just used to shoot Wolverine with.

"Lady, you're about to find out that ain't quite as easy as you might think." Wolverine snarled in response to her threat, as he held his right-hand straight out in front of him and a low-level 'snikt' sound accompanied one set of adamantium claws, which now emerged from out of his fist.

Wolverine then sprinted towards Lady Hydra, with both sets of claws now popped and held out to his side in an attack position. Wolverine's charging advance immediately drew out five HYDRA soldiers, who had been lurking in the shadows of the rooftop close by. These armed men were also dressed in HYDRA's traditional green and yellow-trimmed uniforms, having been dispatched by Madame Hydra to accompany her top lieutenant on this most important of missions. They promptly formed a defensive barrier between Wolverine and Lady Hydra, and without any further hesitation, they loaded the various semi-automatic weapons in their possession, raised them, and then proceeded to empty their magazine clips in Wolverine's direction…

Meanwhile, back down in the club--

As the enormous room continued to fill with the gas seeping down from the air vents up in the ceiling, pandemonium now set in earnest. Most of the guests were starting to feel some of the toxin's effect, and in their attempt to flee, desperately crammed towards the exit.

But, not the X-Men, and certainly not Scott Summers.

As the team's first-in-command, Cyclops fully embraced and took great pride in his role as their consummate leader. He made it a point to always be prepared for any potential situation or emergency, and at the moment, he was as cool and as calm as could be. Within a matter of seconds, Cyclops had assessed and reassessed their current predicament by examining every conceivable strategy in his mind, all the while pulling a smaller, more compact version of his battle-visor from out of his pocket. Unfolding the ruby-quartz visor and placing it across his face, which granted Cyclops complete control over the pure energy that flowed unchecked out of each eyeball, he could now use his optic blasts to respond accordingly and help to save those trapped in there from this attempted massacre.

"Storm, I want you to send a concentrated air blast…(cough) through each of those vents, so you can push whatever that is flowing out back up there, and then take it out from its source." Cyclops now instructed the team's second-in-command.

"Consider it done." Storm confidently replied, as she raised her hands, which were still stained with the blood from her earlier efforts in aiding along Logan's healing-factor assisted recovery.

Storm was also feeling the effects of the gas like Scott and everyone else, but she was just as determined as Scott to not let this obstacle impede their efforts to do what was needed to help save them all. Storm's pupils now constricted and grew smaller, as her psionic control over the elements went into action.

Suddenly, a small gust of wind began to flow throughout the club from seemingly out of nowhere. And just as quickly, the breeze increased in intensity, turning into a gale-force current that shattered the metal grates on one of the air vents up in the ceiling, and further pushed it back up into the airshaft.

Storm's intense microburst of air delivered the desired result, as it also pushed much of the toxic mist back up into the air duct before it could enter the club. She then further pushed the metal canisters, which the gas was coming out of, further back into the airshaft and sent it all of the way back through the ventilation system. Storm wound up doing a tremendous amount of damage to these steel ventilation tunnels, as the fans and other equipment inside of the air-intake system were sheared to pieces from her efforts in expelling the poisonous gas canisters and discharging them outside onto the building's rooftop exterior.

While Storm was using her powers to rapidly take out each of the canisters in the six air vents above in the club, Cyclops in the meantime went to work to finish doing his part. He went to use his visor, which while being more versatile and portable when compared to his regular battle-visor, also had a shorter and more limited range. But, it still did its job by permitting Cyclops to shoot out the window-panes on the club's exterior, as he chose to skip across and expeditiously knock out every other window in the row.

"Okay Storm, you can finish clearing out the rest of the room through those openings." Cyclops now told her, as Storm now sent a new and much stronger gust of wind throughout the club, this time directing it through the open spaces in between the window panels that Cyclops had just punched out.

The residual gas left in the club now quickly dissipated, as Storm's winds had also caused a number of tables and chairs in there to slide around, while most of the guests tried to grab onto something to anchor themselves.

After Storm was done with her cleansing breeze, the guests all stood up and resumed their desire to leave, while the X-Men were left with a brief moment to catch their breath's, this time without inhaling any toxic substances in that air. An as the winds in the club calmed down, Alison stood back up and slowly made her way over towards Cyclops.

"Wow 'leader-man', bullets and poison gas? Somebody out there must really not be a fan of mine…" Alison now smiled and jokingly said to Cyclops, who was close by, her eyes still watering from inhaling this strange mist.

But after taking just a few steps, the toxic effect of the gas that Alison had had taken in caused her to unexpectedly collapse and pass out. Luckily, she was close enough to Scott by this point that he was able to reach out and catch her in his arms, just in the nick of time.

Meanwhile, most of the guests continued to anxiously file out of the club to the stairs and elevators. Mariko, Leyu, and the rest of the X-Men, who had wound up inhaling the lion's share of this unknown asphyxiant, were for the most part the only ones left in the main part of the club. They all sat down in chairs or on the floor and tried to cope as best they could with the poison gas's effects, waiting for the emergency medical personnel that had been summoned to arrive.

But, being the only one who was completely unaffected by this toxic inhalant thanks to his current armored state, Colossus now went back over to his vigil by the window and looked out across the nighttime sky, watching as a most brutal fight over on an adjacent rooftop raged on.

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Instead of snappy or sarcastic banter being exchanged between Wolverine and the HYDRA soldiers as they fought, there was only the frenzied grunting and growling of a man, who now freely unleashed the most feral and savage aspects of his own being against them.

Wolverine moved with great effort to dodge the soldiers' machine-gunfire, all the while kicking, slashing, and hacking at them with his adamantium claws. Lady Hydra stood a number of feet away, her arms folded over in front of her as she watched and studied the brutal efficiency with which Wolverine visited upon them. Wolverine was unrelenting, as he destroyed the soldiers' weapons with his razor-sharp claws, and then finished them off by stabbing them, and in a few instances, relieving some of them of their limbs and other various body parts through adamantium amputation.

"Now, it's just me and you." Wolverine once again snarled, as the last of the HYDRA soldiers that he had been fighting with keeled over, and hit the rooftop with a lifeless thud.

But, choosing to also pass up the opportunity to deliver yet another clichéd statement dipped in sarcasm, Lady Hydra instead made use of the element of surprise to her own advantage. She had been closely watching Wolverine, as he ferociously butchered her men one after another, studying his moves and fighting-style, and looking for anything that might turn out to be of use to her.

Lady Hydra had immediately noticed that, while on the surface Wolverine appeared to have inexplicably recovered from the bullet-wound that she had earlier inflicted on him, his reaction time and reflexes were obviously very much still affected by those injuries. This was despite the fact that he had just cut down some of HYDRA's finest-trained soldiers in so many minutes, and that his clothes were now soaked as much in their blood as his own. And Wolverine, who had pretty much snapped and was now fully caught up in one of his berserker rages, prepared to do the same to her. But, he was completely unaware of the fact that Lady Hydra also had unique powers of her own, which weren't immediately perceptible to the naked eye.

Without warning, Lady Hydra launched herself through the air at Wolverine at a frightening speed, flying into him like a human missile. She slammed her fist dead-center into his chest, right where the heavy-caliber bullet had penetrated, landing her blow with a fist that was easily capable of bending hardened steel in its bare hand. And, when the plethora of internal injuries that Wolverine's body was still contending with were taken into consideration, injuries which included a punctured lung that was still trying to knit itself back together, receiving such a thunderous shot from an individual who was as strong as Lady Hydra was certainly no joke.

Lady Hydra's simple, yet extremely effective tactic, managed to knock the wind out of Wolverine's one good and still functioning lung, momentarily taking the fight out of him as they both traveled high up into the air and over the edge of the rooftop. Now hovering together far above the busy Tokyo-street, Lady Hydra looked at Logan as she held his limp body in her grasp, before simply dropping and releasing him to the fate of a solid and unforgiving street pavement some thirty-stories below.

While Wolverine's adamantium-skeleton would ensure that none of his bones would be broken from such a monstrous fall, even at this height, with his healing factor having already been forced to work double-time tonight, the question was whether the rest of him would be able to get up and walk away from the unbelievable amount of damage that such a plunge would undoubtedly do to his body?

Luckily, with friends' like those that Logan had, he wouldn't have to learn the answer to that question, at least not tonight. With Colossus having watched the entire exchange between Wolverine and Lady Hydra, he then relayed the fact that Logan was falling to the other X-Men. Nightcrawler immediately responded, and ditched the holographically-induced disguise that he had come to the party in. Nightcrawler then used his mutant teleportation powers to jump out and grab a semi-conscious Logan in mid-air, the both of them reappearing together back inside of the club a few seconds later in a bluish-black cloud of smoke.

Logan now lay on the floor of the club, attempting to catch his breath and regain his bearings as his body tried to cope with this latest trauma to it. In the meantime, Nightcrawler had passed out on the floor right next to Logan, blacking out from the strain of having grabbed his friend and teammate from a fall at such a tremendous speed, and from having performed such a daring rescue right on the heels of his being exposed to the harmful, and possibly lethal, gas that Lady Hydra had released inside of the club.

…………………………………………………

Location: Tokyo, Japan- Shinbashi District, Mitsuku General Hospital

Sitting just south of the famed Ginza is the Shinbashi District in downtown Tokyo, which is where many of the pre-wedding party's attendees had been taken for medical treatment. And with the notoriety that surrounded Mariko's family, she and the X-Men had managed to score their own private section in one of the hospital wards. Which her bodyguards and the police promptly sealed off, both for obvious security reasons, and in addition to wanting to keep away any curious reporters who may have already gotten wind of the incident and were looking for a story.

Being one of the few of those brought in who was currently up and around, Logan had spent the better part of the last hour arguing with nearly half a dozen doctors, who wanted him to lie down so that they could check him over and make sure that he was okay. Logan, who was not keen on being in a hospital to begin with and definitely wasn't eager to have anyone prodding or probing him given his past, had tried to convince them that he was fine despite having taken a bullet right in his chest, and that there were others who really needed their help more than him. After continuing this conversation for a number of more minutes, Logan finally won and ended the discussion when he abruptly turned and walked off from the doctors. Now, he found himself wandering up and down this cordoned-off corridor in the hospital.

Logan first went into Mariko's room, so that he could check on how his fiancée was doing. In the other beds in this hospital room with Mariko were Ororo and Alison, all three of them awake and for the most part responsive. Although, they did have oxygen masks on their faces to assist their breathing, which prevented Logan from being able to strike up a conversation with any of them at the moment.

The hospital staff was busy in there administering antidotes to the three ladies, which they hoped would be successful in counteracting the mysterious toxins that they had all been exposed to inside of the club. After seeing that their recovery was progressing along nicely, and after giving his true love a brief kiss on her forehead, Logan next found himself passing by the room where Rogue, Kitty, Leyu, and Jubilee were also laying down, being examined, and were receiving oxygen and treatment for their exposure to the poison. And, where Kitty had gotten out of her bed and was busily explaining to the medical personnel that they should avoid any direct skin contact with Rogue, who was still very drowsy at the moment, which was just as she had explained to the EMT's that had brought them there earlier.

Further down the hallway, Logan now walked onward and came to a stop outside of the room that Scott, Peter, Remy and Kurt were in. It was in here that Logan now overheard them trying to convince an apprehensive hospital staff that, in Kurt's case, it was actually safe to touch him. But, Kurt himself was still out cold from his courageous mid-air save of Logan, and the staff's hesitance was more than likely due to Kurt's unusual physical features, which consisted of his midnight-blue skin and an overall demon-like appearance.

Logan was preparing to go in and raise a ruckus, as only he could, in regards to their reluctance to treat his still unconscious friend. Then out-of-the-blue (no pun intended), Peter suddenly armored his own body up. He told them that they should be more concerned about him hurting them, if anything happened to Kurt because of their unwillingness to help him. And that as health-care practitioners, that they should be ashamed of holding such discriminatory attitudes towards a patient.

"Looks like mine and Short-stuff's influence is actually startin' to rub off on the boy." Logan smiled and silently chuckled to himself, as he now went over and took a seat in one of the many empty chairs lining the hallway.

Logan sat down in the barely cushioned-chair, closed his eyes with a sighing breath, and then placed his forehead against the open palms of his hands. Logan just sat there wondering how the last couple of hours could have turned into such a huge mess? What was supposed to be a simple and joy-filled night of his friends' getting together to celebrate his and Mariko's wedding the day after tomorrow, which would mark the two of them beginning a new life together, had almost wound up costing these people their lives, the very people with whom Logan was the closest to in this world.

His family, if you will.

Logan was not the kind of person who was easily influenced by, or even given to believing in, such things as destiny or fate. But after everything tonight, a small part of him couldn't help but entertain the possibility that maybe this was some kind of foreboding reminder for him, telling him that tremendous violence, pain, and loss were to be an inevitable and inescapable part of his life?

As Logan sat and considered all of these things, and more, his musings were interrupted by a familiar scent approaching. Which, he certainly hadn't been expecting, especially since this individual to whom the scent belonged wasn't even supposed to be in the local area tonight.

This man, who now stood right in front of Logan, was dressed in an outfit consisting of dark-tan pants, a pair of black gloves, and a red long-sleeve leather top with numerous horizontal buckles that ran down his chest. He had a small Japanese flag on the right-shoulder of his uniform, and he was better known to the people of his country by his more popular and highly-descriptive moniker of Sunfire.

While most mutants world-wide had been regarded as super-powered menaces to be feared, and at the very least not trusted, Sunfire had managed to positively ingratiate himself into his country's public consciousness over the years. It was through his heroic and selfless acts in their defense that he had helped to earn a place as a national patriot in many of their eyes.

And Sunfire's work over the years, with Detective Takimoto and the National Police Agency, eventually caught the attention of those in the upper-echelons of the Japanese government. The result was an offer to Sunfire for him to head up a special new division being created within Japan's National Department of Special and Covert Investigations a few months ago. It came right on the heels of his helping to bring down Tokyo's Jigoku criminal underworld, and it was an offer that Sunfire accepted soon afterwards.

As Logan now looked up to see Shiro Yoshida, who was standing in front of him, he saw a most austere expression on his face that relayed the seriousness and concern of his current mood. Shiro, who was cousin to Mariko and older brother to Leyu, had immediately rushed over to the hospital as soon as he heard the news regarding a disturbance at their semi-formal party tonight.

"(What has happened here?)" Shiro calmly asked Logan, as he now came over and sat down in an empty chair right next to him.

This was more of a rhetorical question, since Shiro had already gotten a good account of the nature of the disturbance in the Ginza district from the police. Shiro had first heard about it upon his return from a recent and urgent assignment away from Tokyo. And, he now presumed that Logan had most likely been caught smack-dab in the middle of it, just from the sight of his white muscle-shirt that was stained with dried blood, which he still had on.

"(A bunch of thugs in green get-ups tried to kill us, Shiro-san. Mariko, specifically.)" Logan responded to Shiro in plain Japanese, "(Got an up-close and personal with them, and by the looks, I think they were with HYDRA.)"

"(HYDRA? Why would they be trying to kill any of you?)" Shiro replied, his question still more of a general one to himself, than an actual query to Logan.

"(Your guess's as good as mine. But, I'd say it's someone with a major grudge against M'iko, especially to go all out and hire a professional outfit like that to pull it off.)" Logan stated, revealing a few of his own developing theories regarding whom he suspected of ordering this hit on Mariko.

"(I imagine that since she is a high-profile figure, it would make her an expected target in this country. And, have you not forgotten about the bounty that the Yakuza and Hand reportedly placed on all of us, following The Silver Samurai's arrest?)" Shiro reminded him.

"(No. I haven't forgotten about that at all.)" Logan angrily replied in a low growl, as his suspicions were quickly starting to fall into place, "(Still, that kind of muscle doesn't come cheap, and it would take someone with a lot of stroke to be able to turn HYDRA loose on us.)"

Then, as Logan and Shiro were in the middle of their conversation, a young Asian woman with long, golden-brown hair appeared at the end of the hallway. She now steadily made her way down the corridor towards Shiro and Logan, and at initial glance, looked as though she wasn't even in her early twenties yet.

"(Did you find anything?)" Shiro now asked this mystery woman, as he stood up from his seat to greet her, just as she stopped in front of them.

"(The initial sweep of the hospital's perimeter checked out fine.)" This eye-catching, yet very serious woman replied. She was wearing a red leather jacket, which was similar to Shiro's top down to its color-tone and a small Japanese flag on her right shoulder. She also had on a pair of tight black leather pants, and had a brown mini back-purse slung around her shoulder to finish her look.

("So Honey-Lemon, you come down here all by yourself?)" Logan smiled, as he also stood up to greet her, and now asked her.

("That's 'Special Agent' Honey-Lemon to you, buster!") Agen…(I mean) Special Agent Honey-Lemon, who was also from the Japanese government's newly formed Division of Super-Powered Activities, smirked and sarcastically replied to Logan, ("Don't worry your head about it, the rest of the team is all here. I left them to continue with a more thorough reconnaissance outside, while I came up here and reported to Lieutenant Yoshida.")

"(Nice to hear the gang's all here then.)" Logan playfully said to her.

"(And what's up with you starting some kind of riot over in the Ginza, anyways?)" Honey-Lemon now came closer to Logan, as she semi-accusingly questioned him while pointing a stern finger in his direction, "(I would think that the melee you had all of us involved in when I saw you last, would have been enough to tide you over for a while? You could have at least waited until your honeymoon was over.)"

"(What can I say, doll? Me and trouble go together like this.)" Logan said, as he continued his light-hearted conversation with Honey-Lemon by mockingly holding up two of his fingers for her, and then crossing them one over the other, "(But this time I didn't start it, someone shot at us first. And, now I'm starting to wonder if it might have been retaliation for that little heart-to-heart I had with the head of the Clan Tatsu'o a few weeks ago, after I went and kicked in his front door that night to drive home the point that Mariko's decision to cut all of the Clan Yashida's illegal ties with them was final, and not up for any re-negotiations?)"

"(I doubt that he would be able to institute any such pact with HYDRA, Logan-san. And, certainly not without receiving approval from the other Yakuza families to take such action.)" Shiro surmised, "(Which, I am sure that you aware is highly unlikely at the moment, given their current state of affairs with most of their leadership in jail or in hiding, and with this street-war for territorial control raging on between them.)"

"(Did you say HYDRA?)" Honey-Lemon now asked Logan and Shiro, looking for confirmation that they had actually mentioned the organization's name.

"(Yeah, they're the ones who gave me this air-conditioned shirt I got on.)" Logan replied, as he pointed at the bullet-hole in his bloodied muscle shirt, "(I even tangled with some super-powered chick of theirs, had blonde hair and wore a mask too. And, she also had one killer right-hook on her.)"

"(It sounds like Lady Hydra that you are describing.)" Honey-Lemon replied, astonished that Logan had faced her and lived to tell the tale.

"(You know her?)" Logan now curiously asked her.

"(I know of her. Lady Hydra is one of HYDRA's best-trained operatives. She is an extremely powerful individual, and for that reason, she is also extremely dangerous. During my time in the Intelligence Division, we maintained files on all incoming data regarding global terrorists and their latest activities. And Lady Hydra's name was one that remained consistently at the top of that list, until it dropped off completely more than a year ago.)" Honey-Lemon told them, "(Strange, that she would choose to resurface here in Japan, and now.)"

"(Then that nails it! Some bastard with mighty deep pockets, and even deeper connections, is definitely in on this.)" Logan responded, his tone as infuriated as it was determined to get to the bottom of this.

"(Agent Honey-Lemon, I want you to take the others and establish a perimeter outside, and make sure to coordinate it with the police who are already here. I am going to check to see how my cousin and my sister are doing. When I am finished, I will be out shortly to join all of you.)" Shiro said, as he now turned towards the end of this hospital wing where everyone was being cared for in their rooms.

"(Yes, sir.)" Honey-Lemon nodded her head and replied, as she prepared to take her leave and do as she had been ordered.

But, Honey-Lemon had one last thing to say to Shiro, before heading down to the elevators at the end of this long hallway that they were standing in.

"(Lieutenant, would you tell Leyu that I…and the rest of the team, that we will be back up later, to see how she and Lady Mariko are both doing.)" Honey-Lemon looked up and anxiously asked Shiro, as she then quickly turned away from him and hurried back down the hallway in the same direction that she had come from, disappearing around the corner even faster.

While Shiro now headed for the room where Mariko, Alison, and Ororo were in, Logan was once again left standing there alone. He now carefully contemplated what his next move was going to be, and his plans certainly didn't include him spending the rest of this night twiddling his thumbs in this currently empty hallway.

Well, empty-plus-one actually.

"Sounds like dis list of de usual suspects, it just keeps growin' and growin' don't it, Mon Ami?" Remy abruptly said, as he broke the relative silence of the hallway by announcing his presence to Logan.

Remy had also just revealed how much he had overheard of the conversation Logan had just had with Shiro and Honey Lemon, as he had been inconspicuously leaning against a wall around the corner from them.

"Well 'Gumbo', I'm about to go free up alotta space on that list, by crossin' some o' those names off and sendin' 'em straight to the top of the obituary column!" Logan emphatically replied, revealing to Remy what his intentions now were.

"Seems t'me like de aut'orities got dis one under control." Remy told him, as he pulled his slightly reddish-brown hair out of the single ponytail that he usually kept it in.

"I don't want things under control! I'm gonna put an end to this, before those jokers come back and take another shot at us!" Logan told him, as he turned away from Remy and was about to head towards the elevators, "Tell M'iko and the others I'll be back soon enough."

"Dat gonna be kinda hard for me t'do, 'specially since I'm gon' be wit' you so I can watch yo' back." Remy now stated to Logan, as he took a few steps towards him and put his hand on Logan's shoulder.

"I don't recall askin' for your help on this one." Logan dissentingly responded to his offer, by pushing Remy's hand away from his shoulder, "And, this is somethin' I'd just as soon take care of on my own. And, in my own way."

"Why? 'Cause Mariko's yo' lady? Well, she's my friend and I care about her too. She coulda gone and held my past against me, but she didn't. Hell, she went so far as t'vouch wit' de authorities for me, even after I tried to steal her family's Honor Sword from her. You don't meet too many people like dat in life, least I haven't." Remy ardently explained, as the two men now stood facing one another in the hallway together, "And whoever tried to kill all of us, now they gotta answer t'you AND t'Kid Creole for it."

Logan stood there for a moment in silence, his expression unchanging in this test of wills, as Remy now flashed him his patented million-dollar smile.

"Fine, I ain't got time to argue with you, 'Cajun'. You can roll with me, just as long as you don't slow me down none, or get in my way." Logan told him, as he gestured with his hand for Remy to follow him down towards the elevator shaft on that floor

"Slow you down, me? Never! Gambit hasn't never felt better." Remy boastingly replied, as they continued on together.

"Which, brings up a good point. You're back up on your feet and movin' about, no worse for wear, miiggghhty quick. Especially, for a guy without a healin' factor. Care to explain how that is?" Logan paused and stopped, turning to his left to pose his question to Remy directly.

"Just lucky, I s'ppose." Remy answered him, with a twinkle in his red on black eyes, and a smirking grin that feigned a deceptive ignorance.

Logan could sense right away that there was more to this story than what he was being told, and that luck had very little to do with the former thief's speedy recovery. But, without having the luxury of time to pry it out of Remy, Logan decided to go ahead and let the subject drop for now.

"So, where're we off t'first?" Remy now asked Logan, as they stood by the elevator doors and waited for one to open up.

"First, we're gonna swing by the penthouse and pick up our gear. Then, we're gonna go pay a visit to suspect number one. And, I'm sure he'll be just as happy to see the both of us, as we'll be to see him." Logan replied, as he glanced back over at Remy.

Now, it was Logan's turn to deliver a rather vague explanation, along with a sarcastic grin on his face, and just then, the elevator opened up that would shuttle the duo back down to the hospital's first-floor, so that they could begin their hunt for answers.

…………………………..………………………

Location: Yokohama, Japan- Shin-Yokohama District

On a sparsely occupied street in this central shopping district in Yokohama, sits a multitude of spacious and accommodating department stores. Although at this late hour they were all now closed, while the employees within were diligently preparing for the next day's business. However, at one of these stores in particular, those inside weren't busy restocking any shelves or checking over the store's inventory.

As a matter of fact, their current efforts had nothing at all to do with the actual functioning of this store. Which probably shouldn't come as a surprise, since the hidden sub-levels that they were in and were located far beneath the store technically didn't even exist, at least according to the building's blueprint designs.

It was from this secret underground area beneath this department store that HYDRA had cleverly established another of its numerous and well-camouflaged bases of operations. And, it was from this secluded staging area that this terrorist organization happened to coincidentally spot four teenaged-girls visiting from Tokyo earlier in the day, who had been shopping more than ten floors above in the department store. These four young ladies had come to town to do a little sight-seeing, before returning to Tokyo to attend the engagement and pre-wedding party of two close friends, and in one case, of her cousin.

"Hail HYDRA! Immortal HYDRA! We shall never be destroyed! Cut off one limb and two more shall take its place! We serve the Supreme HYDRA, as the world shall soon serve us!"

This was the mantra being chanted as it resounded throughout this underground hangar, being repeated by a few hundred individuals dressed in green and yellow hooded uniforms in there. These loyal adherents to the HYDRA Bruderschaft (Brotherhood) were now acknowledging their leader's arrival, welcoming Madame Hydra with their traditional motto. They did so, while Lady Hydra silently stood on a steel-grated balcony up above them and patiently awaited Madame Hydra's elevator platform to complete its descent down into this sub-level equipment depot.

Behind Lady Hydra were five HYDRA soldiers, who were standing one directly in front of the other. These three masked men had their arms held out to their sides at varying clock-hand angles, which gave them the appearance of one individual with numerous arms, a human representation of the mythological creature that HYDRA had modeled itself after.

"Well…"

This was the only word spoken by Madame Hydra to her subordinate, as she stepped off of the elevator platform with two of her armed HYDRA bodyguards behind her.

"The X-Men proved to be far more, resilient, than I had anticipated." Lady Hydra replied, her own masked guise not even turning to face Madame Hydra directly.

While they talked, the two women walked over to the balcony's railing and now overlooked the hundreds of HYDRA soldiers that had been assembled below.

"Enough of this non-sense! I want you to organize a full death-squad from our best people and finish this." Madame Hydra quickly snapped in response, as she now delivered her steely decree to her second-in-command, "And this time, there will be no underestimations. You are free to use more obvious methods, even if it means slaughtering any and all who dare to oppose us, or those who just happen to get in our way!

With that, Lady Hydra held up her right hand, and made a simple hand gesture to the men and women gathered down below. Springing to attention, these HYDRA soldiers all stood very rigidly and quietly, before they turned and began to move out to various areas all over the hangar in straight, military-file lines. Lady Hydra then took to the air and flew over the balcony's rail, landing down on the hangar floor some forty-feet below in one fell swoop, with a loud 'click' from the spiked-heels of her boots hitting the hard concrete below.

While Lady Hydra went to go over their attack strategy with all of the battalion leaders, Madame Hydra watched as this latest chain of events that she had set in motion now worked itself towards a most violent culmination, one which in part was meant to settle a personal grudge on her part.

"You can change your name and call yourself John Logan, Emilio Garra…whatever you wish. But, yours is a face that has remained unchanged after all of these years, one that continues to haunt me even to this day. I recognized it immediately, when I saw your picture in that news report about your marriage into one of Japan's most-favored families." Madame Hydra was saying to herself, as she watched the HYDRA strike-force that was assembling below, bearing witness to her own mighty legion as they prepared to move out and do her bidding.

"Old debts will be settled this day, and I vow to destroy everything and everyone that you hold dear for what you did to me! This, I swear…"

……………………………………………………

Location: Tokyo, Japan- Tokyo Detention Facility

Located near the Ayase subway station is this huge confinement complex, where those guilty of a myriad of criminal offenses committed within the Tokyo Metropolitan area are brought to. It is also here, where those accused of more serious crimes are held until their trials. And, since the time allotted for inmates' to receive and meet with their lawyers and other outside visitors had come to an end hours ago, lockdown procedures had already been instituted in preparation of another long night for the jail's population.

But for one inmate, visiting hours once again came with a most unexpected meeting at this late hour of the night, as he was escorted by a guard into one of the jail's interrogation rooms. And, while he fully expected to find a fresh round of questioning from overzealous detectives desiring to pump him for more information regarding his intricate underworld dealings and connections, Kenuichio Harada was thoroughly surprised, almost to the point of being stunned, at the individuals who awaited him in this visitation cell.

Strapped to Harada's right-arm and shoulder as he entered the room was a neural inhibitor, which consisted of two metallic braces that were connected together by a fairly sophisticated computerized-device that wrapped around and ran the length of his arm. The purpose of this mechanism was to block The Silver Samurai's mutant ability to channel a tachyon-field around solid objects, thus making them virtually indestructible and giving him a possible means with which to escape.

"(Oh, it is you. The thief and the animal.)" Harada scoffed at Wolverine and Gambit, as he came into the interrogation room dressed in a plain, dark-blue inmate's jumpsuit and saw these two men not-so patiently waiting for him.

"Nice t'be seein' you too, Sammy." Gambit sarcastically replied first, as he sat in one of the chairs in the room, now wearing his black leather uniform and matching black and brown-trimmed trench coat.

"(This visit is over.)" Harada now said to the guard, as he turned back and motioned for him to open the sliding steel door, so that he could be taken back to his jail-cell.

"You ain't goin' anywhere, not until I get some answers!" Wolverine, who was also in his sleeveless, black leather-uniform, shouted. Wolverine shot up from his chair and pushed the large round table, which he and Gambit were seated around, over a few feet across the concrete floor.

For Wolverine, it had been simple enough for him to arrange this unscheduled meeting, given that his wife-to-be had considerable clout with Tokyo's Police Commissioner General, and that he himself had also lent Sunfire and the local authorities a helping hand a number of times since his return to Japan a few months ago.

"What are you barking about? You low-bred, ill-mannered, gaijin cur!" Harada vehemently spewed his response, as he turned back around from the room's exit and acknowledged Wolverine's words to him.

"What I'm talkin' about is you hirin' those thugs to try 'n kill your sister tonight!" An emotionally charged Wolverine further elaborated.

"I have no idea what it is that you are rambling about." Harada responded, as he came back over and took a seat in a chair close to where the table was now sitting. Harada was now also trying to shake the general feeling of nausea and disorientation that this power-inhibitor wrapped around his arm constantly caused him.

"You're lyin'. And, I wanna know what kinda deal you struck with HYDRA to get them to pull off this hit for you?" Logan said accusatively, as he had serious doubts to Harada's non-involvement in what had happened.

"Believe what you will, but I have arranged no attempt on my half-sister's life." Harada calmly explained, "Take a look around you, simpleton. If I were capable of ordering anyone to do anything, do you not think the first thing that I would have them do would be to free me from this place?"

"Well, all I know is someone awful resourceful, and with a whole lotta motivation helped set this up. And, it's mighty funny when you consider the timin'. Seein' as how it happened right before me and Mariko're supposed to get married, and the fact that might one day throw a major monkey-wrench into your claim on leadership of the Clan Yashida." Logan pointed out to him.

"Everything that I have done, I have done for the benefit of the Clan." Harada replied, his patience wearing thin in regards to these accusations, especially since they were being thrown at him from possibly the one person he despised most in this world.

"Your only reason for doin' anything is to help yourself, ya selfish bastard!" Logan sharply remarked to him, which drew a small laugh from Harada.

"Killing my sister would only serve to hurt the Clan right now. Without a clear and acknowledged leader, it would only descend into chaos and infighting for control, and that is not what I want. When the day comes I am able to assume my place at its head, I want the Clan to be fully operational, not a tattered mess. And as it stands, I am indebted to my sister for her sparing my life, so she has nothing to fear from me.

But you, I owe you nothing.

If I were going to hire HYDRA, or whoever it is that you are alleging me of being in collusion with to kill someone, your name would be the one at the top of that list!" Harada bitingly replied to Logan, as the neural inhibitor's effect on him were not helping with what was already his usually discontented temperament.

"Yeah, just like those 'dangerous' Hand ninja's o' yours that you sent after us." Logan mockingly reminded him, which drew an even louder laugh from Harada.

"Fool, those ninja's that you defeated were not the Hand. Not, the true Hand." Harada mysteriously said to Logan.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Logan inquired of him, as he now sat directly across the table from Harada during this heated conversation between them, and took note of the still visible scar that his claws had etched into the left side of Harada's face during their last duel.

"To answer your question, the true Hand have abilities and expertise that delve deeply into the dark arts. Those ninja's that you, and that vagabond sitting beside you fought, were simply a novice splinter-sect from their organization, nothing more than mere foot-soldiers who had hired their services out to whoever was willing to pay their price." Harada revealed to Logan and Gambit.

"Then, you can tell the Hand, HYDRA, and whoever else you wanna throw our direction that they're more than welcome to keep comin', and I'll keep sendin' what's left of 'em back to you in little disposable bags. Just like I shoulda done with you when I had the chance!" Logan once again shouted, his emotions now starting to get the best of him.

"The reason that you did not perform your duty and kill me is because you are a true coward, allowing yourself to be dictated to by a woman. So, do not come here in some vain attempt to assert what little is left of your manhood by threatening me!" An angry Keniuchio Harada blasted back, as he now stood back up from his chair, which caused a now irate Logan to do the same, "Jail or not, you do not scare me."

Logan and Harada then faced each other and ominously stared the other down in silence, the seething hatred and animosity between them having escalated to a point that it seemed to be almost tangible. After a few moments of this had passed, Harada then spoke again.

"(I have grown weary of this conversation.)" Harada told Logan and Gambit, as he then turned back around to the guard behind him, and was promptly led out of the interrogation room, leaving just his visitors in there. This Samurai, though shackled and perhaps even defeated, had shown them that he had certainly yet to be broken.

"So, you believe Sammy or what?" Gambit asked Logan, as he now stood up from his chair as well.

"I don't know what to believe at this point." An obviously frustrated Logan replied, as he stood and watched as the huge metal-door in front of them slid closed.

"We headin' back t'de hospital then?" Gambit further inquired, as the two men turned around towards another exit on the other side of the interrogation room, where they were buzzed out by another jail guard.

"Not yet, I still intend on gettin' to the bottom of this." Logan replied, as he smiled and looked over at Gambit, while they continued down one of the detention centre corridors together, "You up for a drink Cajun, on me?"

And while Logan had every intention of the two of them paying a visit to one of Tokyo's more seedy drinking establishments tonight, the truth of the matter was that filling up on cheap alcohol wasn't the main motivation driving Logan's latest decision.

………………………………………………………

Location: Tokyo, Japan- Upper-Class Meguro District

Following preliminary tests and toxicology reports on the substance that had been released from the gas canisters planted inside of the club in the Ginza district, it was determined that the gas' aerial potency had remained fairly low thanks to the X-Men's quick thinking. And, since everyone exposed to the toxin had been responding so well to the antidote that had been administered to them, Sunfire and the Tokyo police made the decision in the middle of the night to move Mariko and her guests' back to her high-rise penthouse in the city's Meguro district. Here, the authorities would be able to establish a more effective security perimeter, and a personal physician would remain on hand in the off-chance that anyone began to have any adverse reactions to their treatment.

While Scott, Alison, Ororo, and Kurt soon went to sleep off the anti-toxin's effects in the guest rooms that were located on the top floor of the penthouse, Mariko's younger guests were shown to the additional spare rooms that sat just one floor below. Usually, this area would have been a buzz with gossip and youthful bustling about, but given the circumstances from earlier in the evening, everyone chose to instead follow their elder teammates' example and they also turned in for the night.

With the exception of two, who were among their number.

Kitty's mind was heavy at this late hour, both with the thoughts of what had happened and what had almost happened earlier tonight, which only served to compound on top of the other issues that had been weighing on her for some time now. Unable to sleep, Kitty decided to seek out the company of another who was, if not a kindred spirit, was someone who would certainly listen to her feelings of consternation and would most assuredly relate to what was bothering her.

Rejecting the temptation to instinctively phase through his bedroom door, which she had grown so accustomed to doing, Kitty instead stood in the hallway outside of Peter's bedroom and lightly knocked on the hardwood and rice paper screened-door. Within a minute, the door slid open and in front of her now stood her much larger fellow X-Man, who also happened to be her boyfriend. Peter answered the light-tapping on his door at this early morning hour dressed in just his bare essentials, standing before Kitty now shirtless with just a pair of boxer-shorts on.

Which, Kitty couldn't help but notice, as her eyes unabashedly studied this well-proportioned physique put on display for her.

"Katya, is everything alright?" Peter immediately asked Kitty, as he opened the door posthaste.

Peter now carried himself with a sense of urgency, standing in preparation for Kitty to warn him of some new danger or threat, which he would instinctively respond to by once again springing into action as the armored X-Man code-named Colossus.

"Everything's fine. I just wanted to talk, is all." Kitty replied in a low-voice to keep from waking the others on the floor, as she dissuaded Peter's fears with her words and he relaxed just a little bit. Stepping back and motioning for her to join him, Kitty walked by Peter into his bedroom, as he then slid the door back closed behind them.

In the moderately-lit bedroom, Peter watched as Kitty strode past him wearing an exquisitely-stitched orange and yellow Kimono-robe, which had tiny and highly-detailed seashell designs sewn into it. While Kitty went and took a seat on the edge of Peter's bed, which was elegantly-crafted and stood just a little more than one-and-half-feet up from the floor, Peter went back over and took a seat in a single chair that was over in a corner of the room, turning and facing Kitty from a distance not too far away.

"I'm sorry if I woke you up." Kitty said to Peter, as she looked in his general direction, but not directly at him.

"It is alright, I wasn't asleep. After what happened earlier, I couldn't really sleep. And, I thought that it was probably a good idea if I remained awake and alert anyways, since most of the team is still feeling the effects of that poison." Peter told Kitty, as he sat back in his chair a little. Peter then picked up a notebook-sized sketchpad that had been laying on the floor next to him and placed on a small desk close by, which revealed to Kitty what he had been busy doing before her arrival, "How are you feeling?"

"Not that great. But, I'm still nowhere near as bad as I was that first time when I accidentally phased through Logan in the Danger Room, and found out the hard way just how bad of an idea that can be when I'm not ready for it." Kitty replied, as she looked up from the floor at Peter directly and was able to crack a small smile now about the incident, a far cry from her reaction back when it had originally happened.

"I remember." Peter was now also able to smile a little, although at the time he and the rest of the student-level X-Men wondered if Kitty would ever stop vomiting from that lesson-learned, "And it appears that Logan and Remy are feeling much better as well, considering the fact that they left from the hospital without telling anyone."

"Knowing Logan, they probably went out somewhere drinking, and are staggering their way back to us as we speak." Kitty now giggled and said, before her expression became slightly more serious in nature, "But, I guess what happened tonight is part of the reason I wanted to come and talk to you."

"What is troubling you?" Peter asked Kitty, as he in these few brief moments recognized that something was amiss with his 'Katya', and didn't hesitate to come over from his chair to sit down on the bed right next to her.

"I've just been thinking, for a while now, about how we've been training to fight and defend a world that, in a lot of cases, would just as soon see us dead. And, I just keep thinking about how the day might come when this dream that we're supposed to be fighting for is gonna cost another life on the team." Kitty honestly told him.

Having helplessly watched as Logan was gunned down right before her earlier in the evening, and despite his very miraculous recovery, it had fully brought this point home for Kitty and had managed to drudge up a number of personal issues for her on the subject.

"You shouldn't start worrying about that again." Peter was saying, as he knew from previous experience just how touchy of a subject that this was for Kitty.

"I'm not worrying, I've pretty much accepted that as a reality of who we are and what we do. It's just…" Kitty was saying, when she came to pause and couldn't find the words to continue.

"Just what?" Peter now curiously asked her, as he snuggly wrapped his massive arm around her smaller frame.

"It's just that there are so many things I want to do, before I die. You know, normal stuff." Kitty explained, wanting to be as straightforward with him as possible and not hold anything inside like before, in spite of the somewhat morbid tone that their conversation had taken, "I keep thinking about what you said to me, back before we went off to fight the Sentinels, about how there would always be other tomorrow's for us. But, between the dangers of being an X-Man, and with you going off to college in the fall, tomorrow isn't always guaranteed. And, I..."

Kitty then paused again, as she sighed and took in another deep breath, before she spoke again.

"And, I think I want one of our tomorrow's to happen here tonight." Kitty semi-blurted out, and by her choice of words, Peter knew exactly what she had meant.

"You are just shaken up by what has happened tonight. In the morning, I'm sure that you will feel differently about this." Peter told her, knowing full well that Kitty's statement was an allusion to them having sex.

"Piotr Rasputin, don't you dare try to tell me how I feel! I'm in love with you, and I can tell whether what I'm feeling, whether what I'm wanting, is real or not!" Kitty looked over at Peter with a hurt expression, as she moved away from him across the edge of the bed and shouted at him in a low whisper, "And it's not just some knee-jerk reaction I'm having, it's something I've been thinking about for awhile now. I even went out and bought these when we were still back home, and I kept them with me when I realized there was a real possibility that I actually might need them."

Kitty proceeded to reach into the pocket of her Kimono-robe, where she pulled out a condom that she now laid down on the bed in the space between them.

"Are you certain about this, Katya?" Peter asked, as he looked down at the square-shaped object that sat between them, and then looked back up at Kitty.

"I've never been more sure about anything in my life." Kitty softly replied, as she looked away from Peter and down onto the hardwood floor, "But if you're not sure, if you don't feel the same way, then I don't want you to think I'm tryin' to pressure you into anything."

"Talk about a complete role-reversal there." Peter lightly remarked, as he reached over to pull Kitty even closer into him with his left arm and kissed her on her forehead, "But, there is no one in this world that I would rather be with, than with you tonight."

Peter then wrapped both of his arms around Kitty in an enveloping embrace, as Kitty put her hands gently on the sides of his face and the pair sat on the edge of his bed kissing each other in a very sensuous manner.

"You are shaking." Peter pointed out to Kitty, as they took a brief pause from their kiss to catch their collective breaths, and sat together in their tender embrace.

"I guess I'm just a little nervous. I just want our first time together to be…well, to be good." Kitty said, as she flashed him a grin that showed off her barely visible braces, while looking up at Peter with her big, beautiful brown eyes.

"Do not concern yourself with such things. I know it will be." Peter smiled and reassured Kitty, as the two began to kiss again and this time they fell back onto Peter's bed together.

As Peter held Kitty close to him, moving his hands in a slow caressing motion up and down her back, Kitty began to lightly kiss him on his neck before moving down to his upper-body, her auburn-brown hair brushing up ever so slightly against his jaw, his chin, and then his across his chest.

The physical expression of how these two felt for each other quickly intensified, and gave way to a far greater level of intense passion. Emotions, which had been steadily building in the more than eight months since that day when Kitty and Peter first acknowledged their growing affections for one another on a cold, late-winter day while standing next to Lake Baikal in Siberia, were at last turned loose…

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Prologue- (To a most final and decisive rematch)

Location: Tokyo, Japan- Ginza District

In these pitch-black hours of the early morning, while those in Tokyo who had intended on getting any sleep this night already were, there were others who remained busy with tasks at hand that were of the utmost importance. Such as a lone-figure, who was currently standing atop a rooftop that was adjacent to an exclusive dining club in the city's popular Ginza district. It was here that complete bedlam had erupted earlier in the evening, when an attempted murder gave way to all hell breaking loose. But now, the area was fairly serene and peaceful thanks to the numerous law enforcement officers still in the area, all the while as this lone-wolf conducted an investigation of his own high up above.

Although he was not a member of the Tokyo Police, nor was he with any of Japan's investigative agencies for that matter, he still had little trouble in gaining access to this cordoned-off crime scene area. Possessing a badge with the insignia of the Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate, or SHIELD for short, were the kind of credentials that could gain a person instant access to just about anywhere.

But, this agent of SHIELD was wearing a most unusual and non-regulation uniform, which consisted of silver Kevlar-mesh material underneath armor-plating that covered a good portion of his body, armor-plating that was made from a special lightweight metal alloy that came in a dulled-bronze colored. This unconventional man standing there now looked through the eyeholes of an even more unusual bronze and black mask that he had on, which was made from the same metal alloy, as he carefully examined every square-inch of the rooftop's surface in an attempt to ascertain exactly who had been behind this attack. He immediately noticed that the advanced-looking weapons strewn about all over the roof appeared to have been cut, or sliced, in half. He also saw that there had been a tremendous amount of blood splattered in numerous splotches all over the rooftop as well, the aftermath of what was an obvious fight up there, and what was a fairly savage one at that.

Just then, his probe of this outdoor space was interrupted by the ringing vibrations of a hi-tech communication device attached to the weapons/utility belt around his waist, flashing to life as it informed him of a now incoming call.

"Agent Zero here." Was his response, his words spoken through a heavy German-accent. After activating the two-way comm-device connected to his belt, he detached it and now held it in his hand, waiting for the visual image of the caller to appear on this small-screen that was currently expanding and opening itself up right in his very palm.

"What have you discovered so far, Maverick?" A voice asked him, which was just as thickly-tinged in a Russian timbre in its own right.

"Well, Natasha, judging by the AIM hardware that was left diced into pieces up here, the multiple shell-casings, and the description of the outfits worn by those unidentified men, who were missing most of their upper-extremities when they were bagged up and taken down to the city morgue, I would say that this was definitely a HYDRA hit." Maverick answered, as he addressed Captain Natasha Romanova, who was the head of SHIELD's European and Greater Asia Command.

Captain Romanova was better known to the rest of the world as the legendary agent-provocateur The Black Widow, and the reports of her famed accomplishments during her days with the KGB, and later with SHIELD, had granted her near mythic-status by now.

"This also confirms the increased intel-chatter that we have picked up regarding heightened terrorist activity in Tokyo and its surrounding province in recent days, and of some renewed HYDRA initiative there." The Black Widow told him, as she spoke to Maverick from behind her desk in her dimmed personal office in SHIELD's Operational and Oversight Command Headquarters, this one having happened to be located in Athens, Greece, "And considering who we may be running up against, it is fortunate that you were able to arrive as quickly as you did."

"Luckily, I just happened to be in the region doing some work in Hong Kong, when I received Agent Carter's communiqué. And you know my slogan, 'Have Gun, Will Travel'." Maverick musingly replied, referring to the black-ops mission that he had just completed, when he was contacted by SHIELD Central in New York City that afternoon about a possible hot-bed of HYDRA activity building in Japan.

"You're a big fan of the old American Westerns I see, Comrade?" Black Widow humorously remarked, as the redhead sunk back into her executive-styled leather chair, placing her spiked-heel boots up on the edge of her desk off to the side a little and watching Maverick's rather capricious facial-expressions on the monitor right in front of her.

"More like a case of life imitating art, I imagine." Maverick replied, as he thought briefly about just how long he had been a participant in these cat-and-mouse games over the decades, and not for the first time, wondered if it had perhaps been too long?

"Continue to keep me apprised of whatever else you uncover regarding what HYDRA is up to. I have already dispatched Agent Drew, she and her strike-crew should be arriving within the next few hours to assist you with the mobilizing of our forces already there in Japan. Her vast knowledge and past experience in dealing with HYDRA should also be extremely helpful to you." Black Widow was informing Maverick, "In the meantime, see if you can contact this man, he is the fiancé of the wealthy Japanese socialite who was reportedly targeted by HYDRA. And, according to our undercover operatives who were at the hospital where most of the guests were taken following this incident, it appears that he and his friends have been positively ID'd as members of the X-Men, the mutant group that helped SHIELD to liberate the Heli-Carrier some months ago."

With that, the Black Widow cued up an image of the man that she was telling Maverick about, and his heart nearly stopped when he saw whom she referring to.

"I will see if I can locate him, 'Tasha. Maverick, out." Maverick told her, as he abruptly signed off from his comm-device, and then stared for a moment at the remaining image left on its hand-held screen.

It had been some time since Maverick had seen him, yet the face of this man whom he had fought and bled beside still remained the same. Which wasn't much of surprise to Maverick, since they had all undergone those strange and radical experimental procedures so many years ago.

"Well Logan, I hope that you are good at surprise reunions with old friends. Which is ironic, given the place we are both in. It's almost as if we've coming full circle here, from our days together with Team-X." Maverick thought to himself, as he shut off his comm-device and let it hang down in his hand by his side, anticipating this seemingly inevitable meeting between John Logan, and his former war-buddy Christopher North…

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Next Chapter- Saved by Zero?