Disclaimer: Not Mine

Author's Note: This is not in the same timeline as X-Men Resurrection, but is a new version of what happens after X3 based upon Wolverine Origins, which is amazing!

Please, let me know how I'm doing.

Chapter 1

Things around the institute were calming down after the changes that had happened only the month before. Students were back, classes had started again, and the teaching staff had grown with the addition of Scott's brother Alex, who felt it his duty to pick up where Scott had left off and Dani Moonstar a woman with as much talent as she had a chip on her shoulder. But she was good and she minded Storm, which was all the new headmistress could really ask for. She had taken the changes the hardest, knowing those lost the longest, and the closest of all those in the institute. She had turned to Hank for support, knowing, before long that Logan would follow his nature and leave again.

When she saw Rogue that morning wearing the familiar dog tags around her throat, she knew. Rogue. Ororo couldn't look at her without feeling a pang of resentment for the girl taking the easy way out. The southerner offered to leave, but Storm, following Hank's advice, let her stay on, filling the role of administrator since she had finished her schooling. She still didn't like it, having a traitor checking in new students. To Storm, that wasn't what Xavier's Institute and the X-Men stood for. But, as Hank pointed out, forgiveness was.

"When did he leave?" Storm asked in a sharp tone, not looking her in the eye, before Marie had even taken a seat at her desk.

"Before 6," Marie told her with a frown, no longer really minding the way Ororo treated her. Well not outwardly. She justified it simply—Storm didn't know what Rogue's powers were like. Still, she felt like the traitor she knew that Storm saw her as. She took the easy way out. And what did she have to show for it? A strained relationship and nowhere in life where she truly fit? Right, that was the easy way.

"You better turn on the news," Kitty called running into the office, not bothering to open any door, "This isn't good!"

"There was an early morning attack on the Worthington Corporation, Lab department," the cheery reporter said with the violated building in the background, "Where mutant friendly scientists had been secretly trying to find a cure for the Cure that has been heralded as one of the biggest best medical break throughs of the century and has given a renewed hope for finding a cure for AIDS and other deadly diseases…" Storm turned off the sound and looked to Kitty, "We're a deadly disease now? Do we have any clue who did it?"

"Magneto?" Rogue asked, "Who would want the Cure reversed more than him?"

"I hacked into the police reports," Kitty admitted, "There were claw marks at the scene."

"Claws?"

Kitty nodded, "I did a cross reference with Cerebro's mutant database on the claws and strength required. It came back with a match. Sabertooth."

Rogue wanted to laugh but instead sat down, remembering how the feral had last been seen falling from the Statue of Liberty. "Ah hate healing factor."

Storm shook her head, knowing that things weren't adding up. "What would Sabertooth want with the cure?"

---

10 years earlier

Stryker smiled as he looked down at the feral man strapped to the table. "It took a long time to track you down Victor."

"I guess I'm better at hide-and-seek," Victor Creed growled, struggling against his restraints.

"You double-crossed me."

"Who hasn't?"

"You may have a point," Stryker allowed before looking to the scientist standing by. "Luckily for you, I am a generous man. Erase his memory, and put a tracking tag on him—he may still be useful."

---

8 Years Later

Victor, now called Sabertooth fell through the boat, landing hard at the bottom of the water. His wounds were oozing, his body bruised from the force of Cyclop's attack and he wasn't sure if he could find the strength to swim. Well, he guessed he was going to find out for sure how good his healing factor really was, right after he regained consciousness.

---

"We found him!" A soldier called, finally finding the blip on his radar.

Stryker came forward with a grin. It had taken him six months to locate the man who had once loyally served him, whose bloodlust had matched his own. For six months he had a team searching for Victor Creed. And all the time he was under the Statue of Liberty, licking his wounds and trying to remember what had happened to him: he had flicks of memories, of Magneto leading him, of fighting Wolverine, of the bloodlust that he still felt on his account…and then nothing.

Stryker found him and brought him back under his guidance and leadership: now that Alkali Lake had been destroyed, he had to start again. But this time, he had something better in mind—he was going to pick up where he had left off and he had discovered a mutant with potential enough to make all his dreams a reality! He was going to be unstoppable, and finally find a way to kill the Wolverine.

---

Rogue, having been familiar with the workings of the Danger Room computers, now often ran the simulations for the team, something that she took great enjoyment in, taking much knowledge from the memories of her teammates, which never did leave her despite the Cure, to make the sessions as challenging as she could. She watched them with envy from the safety of the control room, remembering her time among them. She was now always on the outside looking in. Even having powers that were more of a menace, that made them all afraid of her, seemed better in their eyes than her having no powers at all.

The kids at the institute once gave her a wide berth, afraid of coming near her poison skin, now they did it because of the cure. She was no longer a mutant; she was no longer one of them. She was now a monster who gave up what they all found a way to deal with, what they cherished as their birthright.

Only Peter seemed to treat her the same as he had before, only he seemed not to hate her. While the others, even her one time friends, didn't know how to act around her, Peter was the same. He listened to her, he didn't fear touching her. He never had. She knew that if it hadn't been for Peter and Logan, she never would have made it this far. Now that Logan was gone, it made Peter all that more special to her.

"Bobby doesn't hate you," Peter told her once his training session was over. They were on the lawn, watching the younger kids play basketball, "He loves you."

"Right. Love or not, he doesn't like me too much."

"Maybe it isn't him?"

She rolled her eyes, hating it when he was trying to be a philosopher as well as a psychologist, "What do ya mean?"

"You don't like yourself too much."

"Can ya blame me? No one here likes me. Not that Ah can blame them." She lowered her head so that it was resting on her bare, folded arms, "Ah'm scared Pete. At least before Ah knew what was going to happen? Now—now nothing is for sure. Did ya hear about the girl in China whose body started to reject the cure?"

"Are you afraid it's going to happen to you? Or that it won't?"

She shot him a look. Her comment to him was cut off when the warning siren sounded. Something was coming in fast, and it was most likely bad.

Standing, Peter's armor slid into place, "Inside!" He bellowed, ushering the kids into the mansion, Rogue helping as best she could, hearing the sound of the plane passing them by, so close to the ground that the force of the breeze almost knocked them off their feet.

Bobby and Warren met them on the lawn when the bomb was released, hitting the ground ten feet away from Rogue. Warren leapt into action, even as the mist started to flood from inside, choking her, pulling Rogue away to safety, as Bobby covered it with a thick coat of ice. But even still the damage had been done.

Storm and Hank were with them when they heard the scream. Turning, they saw Angel lying on the grass pale and convulsing, his veins bulging on the surface of his skin; and Rogue, with her bare hands sinking into the ground, was screaming—tears were streaming down her face as downy wings erupted from her back.

Hank could only blink, "Oh my stars and garters!"

---

TBC