AN: I am soooooooo sorry for the late update! I'm not gonna lie, I though we were gonna go on a beach trip and so postponed writing the next chapter, and then I had a creative slump and so only got around to writing it today. I am sorry, and this was probably the best thing I could do right now. I just don't want the story to end! I've had so much fun writing it. But don't worry, it's not gonna end yet. Anyway, you've waited long enough, go on and read the chapter, I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter twenty-eight

Fight and flight smelt like exactly the same. They both smelt like fear. Everyone had known fear at some point. Wolverine knew it well, not that he would admit that to anyone. It didn't make any sense, but the only thing worse than captivity was the sheer terror that came with liberation. Wolverine remembered being afraid, and not much else. That was a mercy, compared to what he saw now at this hellish facility. It felt familiar. Too familiar. Wolverine had escaped his first cage a long time ago. Running from Weapon X had taken days, and now he was back here again, the very place where they made him and other monsters like him.

Wolverine ran through the facility, following the scent of death and decay. He had let Deadpool take the route to Ink, because Wolverine knew that he needed it. Deadpool had been quiet, not quite as in the normal way but quiet for him, for a few days now. He might have been fooling the Avengers, but Wolverine knew why Deadpool had been acting the way he had. Deadpool had something to lose. Wolverine wasn't even sure if Deadpool knew that.

The smell was almost too much now. It almost over powered almost everything. One thing was for sure, a lot of people had been killed. Too many had been killed. Wolverine could only hope that it was the Weapon X soldiers and not the experiments that the scientists had been talking about.

Wolverine turned a corner, and stumbled to a halt.

Dead.

They were all dead.

Experiments, subjects, people had been slaughtered mere hours ago.

Wolverine could hardly bare to look. They had been shot where they stood, bullets and empty cartridges littered the floor. The more Wolverine looked the, more he noticed that each one of experiments had some kind of deformation. Scales, extra arms or hands, he even noticed a small dead girl who had feathered wings. They were all dead.

Wolverine paused, and sniffed the air. Yes there was somebody else here.

SNIKT

A fight was exactly what Wolverine needed right now.

Sabertooth stepped out of the shadows, grinning.

The battle seemed to take over everything. Ice Beasts of all shapes and sizes flew in a great gathering above the Avengers and the two dragons' heads. Swarming to mass together for a minute, to regroup and give them a break from the fight, before diving down in a great wave with talons that slashed; claws that sliced and teeth that snapped. The Avengers, Hiss and Drakki had the sheer disadvantage here.

The Ice Beasts had not been fighting for as long as the superheroes and the dragons on the ground had. They had been fending off the entrance to the mountain and the pass through the woods to the Quinjet for gods knows how long. And to add to that, they had been battling Weapon X soldiers for ages before this. The Avengers, Hiss and Drakki were battered and busied and were generally in a bad condition.

The Avengers could not fight like this for much longer and Drakki and Hiss were almost done for. Taking down a single Ice Beast was hard, taking on the swarm was almost impossible. It was a long process, especially as the Ice Beasts attacked all at once, in one giant wave, descending on the Avengers, snapping a biting. The seven superheroes were lucky to get a few shots in but ammo, strength and motivation were being worn down. The two dragons were in an even worse condition as they seemed to have committed themselves to distracting the Ice Beasts from the sky: dive bombing, clawing at their backs and creating chaos in order to scatter the Ice Beasts ranks and keep their focus off of the superheroes on the ground. However, the Ice Beasts weren't stupid. They could learn from their mistakes and spot vulnerabilities in the fighting styles and techniques that the superheroes used.

Black Widow had abandoned her guns ages ago as she had ran out of ammunition but her hand to hand combat and assassins skills weren't much use against giant, flying, fire breathing, other-worldly creatures. Black Widow had tried to use her Widows Sting Gauntlets and electrified Escrima Sticks on the Ice Beasts, but these weapons were supposed to give jolts of electricity large enough to knock out a human. They almost did nothing against the tough hide and the sheer mass of the Ice Beasts. Black Widow didn't notice any kind of reaction, except for the fact that the Ice Beasts seemed to only get madder.

Hawkeye had nearly run out of arrows, having only three left in his quiver, and all of his specialised arrow heads had been used up. So far the best was to take down the Ice Beasts was by shooting arrows into their blazing red eyes whenever they came down to attack. As the disintegrated into paper, Hawkeye had enough time to grab his arrow. He then had to dive for cover as another Ice Beast slashed out at him with his claws. He had several severe cuts due to the long sharp claws of the Ice Beasts. In fact, everyone had bleeding gashes, all of which had shockingly started to turn black due to frost bite. Although the Ice Beasts weren't as cold as Frost Giants, their body temperature was still low enough to cause damage to humans and Asgardians.

Iron Man's armour was not doing so well. There were chunks missing from the suit, and it sparked madly where wires were loose. Every so often, the eyes of the armour would flicker as the display inside of the helmet would flash and cut out as it highlighted damages and problems within the Iron Man armour. Tony would shout out every so often, telling his AI, JARVIS, to shut up because there was nothing he could do right now as he was just a little busy.

Thor continued to swing and throw Mjolnir as hard as he could. He would infrequently call down lightening to fry some of the Ice Beasts, which was the best strategy as they always crumbled to strips of paper whenever they got hit. However, it was too taxing to keep on doing it forever, and the Ice Beasts had grown wary of Thor's tactics. They had learnt when and where he was most vulnerable, so Thor now sported gashes and burns on his face and hands, due to his unwillingness to back down.

Captain America still continued to shout out strategy tactics and motivational phrases to his team, which was often met with angry replies. The Avengers and two dragons were tired and needed the battle to be over. They knew what to do without more instruction. So Captain America was left to block with his shield as he held it up against the fangs and the talons that scraped and screeched on the impenetrable metal. The Ice Beasts had also learnt, however, to target his arms. Even though Captain America wore the shield in his left arm, he had a tendency to throw with his right. The material of the captain's uniform was now torn and tattered and blood seeped into the edges of the cuts due to the slashes on his arms. The more and more he used the shield, the more the cuts bled.

The only Avenger who showed no sign of letting up was the Hulk, who had just joined the fight. He slammed in to Ice Beasts, tearing them up in to shreds of paper with his bare hands. The Ice Beasts were unable to cut his skin with their claws. The Ice Beasts were now cautious around the Hulk. The smaller Ice Beasts held back, where as the larger ones pelted him with torrents of fire.

Hiss and Drakki landed once again, as the cloud of Ice Beasts surged up, their numbers reduced, but nonetheless deadly. After battling different Ice Beasts in the sky for hundreds of times, the two dragons were now in worse condition than all of the Avengers put together. One of Drakki's legs had sustained an injury of a particularly nasty gash that bled badly. She whimpered and limped whenever she ran, unable to put too much weight on it. She also had several bites that covered her neck, wings and tail, all of which were showing worrisome signs of frost bite. Hissing Soul could barely slither through the snow. She too had severe bite wounds that covered most of her body that hurt her terribly and would definitely scar. There was even a chunk missing from the end of her tail. Hiss needed to stop fighting, or else she could die.

But Hissing Soul would not, could not, be stopped. She launched herself into the air, her six rows of teeth rotating as fast as she could and her body snapped like a whip as she flew higher and higher to meet the regrouping Ice Beasts. An Ice Beast broke from the cloud and flew to meet her in the sir. It was almost twice her size, bound in muscle, covered in sharp spines and serrated teeth jutted out from its jaws. The dragon and Ice Beast clashed in the sky, inflicting terrible wounds onto each other before the Ice Beast suddenly drew back and lashed its tail around to hit Hissing Soul in the head, it almost tore half of her face off. Shocked, she fell. She hit the ground, tearing up ground and sending snow flying into the air. Hiss did not get up. She lay crumpled in the snow.

Drakki roared, almost screamed, for the fallen dragon. She rushed to Hiss' side, but the Ice Beast landed in front of Drakki, intending to finish the job. Not even hesitating, Drakki sent the most powerful fire ball she had made yet into the face of the Ice Beast. Its head disintegrated first then the rest of the body followed. With that obstacle out of the way, Drakki raced to the fallen dragon's side.

Black Widow stared at the collapsed dragon. Nothing seemed to be able to stop Hiss when she was protecting Ink. Hissing Soul did not mover, and her injuries were terrible. Black Widow paused, crouched behind a log, looking worriedly at the Whispering Death, hoping that she hadn't died. IT didn't seem to be the case as Hiss hadn't disintegrated like the Ice Beasts, and Drakki was dutifully protecting the dragon's body. There was still hope then.

However, it would be over for all of them if Deadpool and Wolverine didn't return with Ink soon.

Deadpool ran along the corridors inside of the facility with Ink in his arms. He was almost there. She still hadn't awoken from whatever they had been drugging her with. Deadpool supposed that was a blessing, considering the state she was currently in.

He tensed when he heard footsteps coming. Deadpool would have to lay Ink down in order to fight, and there was no way in hell that that was happening. When it turned out to be Wolverine, Deadpool almost sagged in relief. Wolverine had acquired some nasty looking injuries. They were already healing of course, due to his healing factor.

"You found her!" Wolverine said when he saw them.

Even though it was a statement and not a question, Deadpool felt the need to answer it anyway. "No, this is a sack of potatoes I found along the way, of course it's Ink!"

Deadpool continued to run down the next hallway, now with Wolverine in tow. "Where did you get the battle scars, Wolvie?" Deadpool asked.

"Sabertooth, he's currently unconscious though. He, Lady Deathstrike and Omega Red were the one who captured Ink in the first place." Wolverine growled.

"So they managed to put the tem back together. Where are Lady Deathstrike and Omega Red anyway?"

"They were evacuated out with the rest of the monsters in this $* &-hole." Wolverine snarled.

Deadpool felt like there was something else that Wolverine wasn't telling him, but he didn't feel like having six deep holes to bleed from in his chest right now, so he left it alone.

On and on the two ran, with the unconscious girl in Deadpool's arms.

I could never forget that smell.

The smell of gun oil, bad body odour and old Mexican food.

The smell of Deadpool.

I'd never thought that I would smell it again, although it wasn't something I exactly missed, it still seemed to fill me with sorrow.

I'm never getting out of here.

Next there came a strange feeling. A feeling like I was being carried. My head bounced against someone's chest and I was being held by strong, though smelly, arms.

No one was coming for me

But what was this? It wasn't a dream, was it?

"Come on Ink, you have to wake up."

That voice! It was so familiar. The voice of Deadpool.

"You found her!" Wolverine too? What was this?

"No, this is a sack of potatoes I found along the way, of course it's Ink!"

It... It wasn't a dream

I gasped, but didn't open my eyes. My arms tightened around Deadpool's neck, never wishing to let go. This was real, this was actually happening.

"Don't worry, lil' lady, you're gonna be okay... I think." Deadpool said.

I gasped again. I was getting out of here.

They had come for me...