Disclaimer: I don't own any characters except Naomi, Irbis and several innocent short-lived bystanders; everything else is Marvel's only.

Chapter 1

The Compound

It was a new moon night, and the darkness enveloped everything in its late spring coolness. Amidst the towering trees, one man carefully watched a small log cabin. It was apparently abandoned, but the man knew better. There were faint scents in the air that revealed the existence of a metal underground building.

"Ya'd think a complex right in the middle o' nowhere would be enough for these assholes to feel safe," he mumbled to himself, "but no! They just had to go an' make themselves a nice little early grave!"

He moved away from the cabin a couple of miles. He remembered the blueprints he had had access to, and carefully avoided the emergency exits he knew were scattered on a 5 mile radius from the cabin, the compound's main entrance and only spot where an air-borne transport could land. Finally, he found what he had been looking for – an air vent. He smiled to himself as he swiftly entered the vent. This was almost too easy!

He had learnt about the compound by chance. When he had escaped from the Weapon X Program, he had brought a disk holding data on a great number of mutants. There were many mutants on the list, and some names, or powers, caught his eye; so he had taken note of any information he had considered relevant. A mutant in particular, a black girl by the name of Naomi Pearson, had made him cock an eyebrow and read the scant information on her with more attention.

She was now 19 and had lived with her parents in Detroit until she was 16. At that age, her powers had manifested and she had suddenly disappeared. She had been spotted by the authorities just a year ago in New York. What attracted Sabretooth's attention was that she was marked as being of great importance because of her unique powers: she could slide between dimensions and take people with her. Although he wasn't sure of the exact meaning or importance of her powers, the simple fact that she was important to the big shots made her a worthy target. However, her whereabouts were unknown and, at the time, he had had more pressing matters at hand… such as finishing off other mutants the Program had its eyes on, harassing the Program's agents and, last but certainly not the least, tormenting Logan by targeting his foster daughter Amiko.

Unfortunately, when he had decided to sell the data to the highest bidder (which would have made him filthy rich), the Program sent Agent Zero to capture him and then they had a mental block put on him so he couldn't go about running rogue again. It was then he had discovered that Dr. Windsor wasn't just your everyday secret-program's-doc. That knowledge gave him a much necessary window of opportunities to escape the compound once again, avoiding being captured by the just-promoted-new-head-of-the-show. But, more importantly yet, it gave him the opportunity to find out about the other compound.

Apparently, the sweet Dr. Windsor, who was saving mutants from the death row and feeding them to his own horror show, had a particular interest in the Naomi Pearson girl. In fact, he was so interested in her he had put his own spies out to find her. And he had.

According to Windsor's files, Naomi Pearson had been captured and delivered to another secret department which was researching a way to keep the genes from mutating. They didn't just want to 'cure' mutants; they wanted to know what makes genes mutate, so that they could eliminate the problem at its source. And the girl was of great importance because she could take them to dimensions where there weren't any mutants at all. They had gone to this dimension, designated as Human Earth because it wasn't infested with mutants, and brought with them a few loads of people. They were currently testing them and were trying to understand why these humans didn't originate the X-gene plaguing all the other dimensions; and Windsor was very obviously following their research with great interest, even if, as far as Sabretooth knew, he hadn't yet got his hands on genetic samples.

Creed, however, hadn't like this news. What would those government dickheads try to do once they found out how to keep mutants from being born? And what if they found a way to erase the X-gene, turning every mutant into normal humans again? That would affect him. Sabretooth was in no way interested in getting ripped from his enhanced senses, his healing factor or his retractable claws.

Even as he lurked in the bowels of the Weapon X compound, waiting for the ex-Morlock Marrow, he was carefully considering all the data he had gathered from Windsor's files and planning the complete termination of the secret genetic program. "These things are worse than cockroaches" he had mused to himself, "but I'm just the man to terminate them once and for all."