Hi all, only major thing is that a mysterious female Reaver below is Cylla Markham, pilot who transported Banshee and Forge on one of their missions, but the plane was shot down, with Cylla left dying. Donald Pierce rebuilt her into one of his Reavers, and she played a major role in a plan, unbeknownst to her, in the killing of Mariko Yashida in the original continuity, distracting Logan as she threatened to kill Jubliee and Yukio, causing him to leave Mariko's side with only Gambit left, leading to her poisoning, and begging Logan to use his claws to spare her the long and lingering agony of the blowfish toxin. Cylla then turned up later with the vampire Bloodscream after Logan had his adamantium ripped out of him by Magneto and his healing factor burnt out near to nothing, hunting him down, until without food supplies Bloodscream turned on her, draining her blood, apparently killing her (she turns up later, when Marvel decided to bring her back to life again, and so appeared periodically, taking the Reaver name Skullbuster.

Anyway, that's it for that I think, thank you all for taking the time to read this, and I hope you enjoy the chapter :-) .

Chapter 8

The parched, baking hot desert of the Australian outback stretched out into the far distance, painted crimson by the sunset rays of the dying Sun, as though transformed into a sea of blood. In the far distance Kitty's sharp eyes made out a set of dilapidated shacks and houses, a ghost town of prospectors long gone, recently burnt out, smoke still lazily rising into the air.

"Looks like we missed the party," Logan said grimly beside her. "Best keep our guard up though, there might always be a few stragglers who haven't got the message it's time to leave."

"I don't sense anything from there Logan," Jean added uneasily. "Just deathly silence."

"Yeah," Logan muttered, "the place reeks of death an' destruction. Wasn't exactly what I was expectin', of cause we won't know more till we go in an' see what happened to ol' Pierce an' his boys."

Kitty and Logan began to scout ahead, making their way carefully towards the smoking ruin of the abandoned town that had served as a base for the cybernetic gang of criminals and murderers known as the Reavers, whilst Jean and Hank hung back.

That group nursed a particular hatred for the X-Men after the X-Men had driven them from their base when the goddess Roma had restored them to life here, following their battle with the malevolent entity known as the Adversary.

Kitty hasn't been there for that, but after their alliance with the former White King of the Hellfire Club, and fellow cyborg, Donald Pierce, and one of Logan's nemeses, Lady Deathstrike, had seen the group enhanced.

With Pierce's white hot hatred of mutants in general, and the X-Men specifically, added to their own, had honed the Reavers thirst for revenge to a razor-keen edge.

From what Kitty had learned, with Ororo already lost at the time and Logan away in Madripoor under his Patch persona, Betsy has managed to save the X-Men just in time from the new and improved Reavers' ambush, leading them through the Siege Perilous.

The results lead to all of them coming out in different areas and lives, and in the case of Betsy, ultimately a new body and alterations to her powers that lead to the psychic ninja she was now.

Logan has arrived later, and by his own admission let his try down. He was ambushed, then crucified and tortured by Pierce, Deathstrike and the Reavers' for days on end.

Kitty glanced at him for a moment as the two moved across the barren desert silent and unseen, nothing more than shadows cast by the setting Sun.

He'd never really talked about it, and all he'd experienced, but from Kitty's talks with Jubilee, who'd been there during his crucifixion, having before this followed the X-Women through the mysterious mutant Gateway's portal, Logan had been in the grip of some severe hallucinations. She said he be talking to imaginary people as though they were there during the freezing nights he'd been hanging there on the X-shaped cross Pierce and the Reavers constructed, before Jubilee could get him down.

From what Betsy had told her, after Logan and Jubilee had caught up with her, freeing her from her brainwashed state as Last Mandarin, it had continued for weeks afterwards Logan had snapped out of it.

But like so many of his most traumatic moments he never really talked about it. In part she supposed, pain of all kinds had become such a defining part of his life that it was just another, particularly bad day, at the office for him. Just one more horrible experience on top of everything else he'd already been through.

Also, his tough, hard as nails, badass demeanour was something he'd long relied on to keep going through some of the hardest situations that would have had almost anyone else folding and given up, broken completely.

And it was something she and many of the X-Men had come to rely on as well. For Logan to stand tall, never give in, never give up, never back down, no matter who or what they were facing.

Despite how scary, difficult or otherwise he could be, particularly in the past, that unshakable, cocky, take no shit attitude, Mr 'I'm the best at what I do', had been part of what made him a backbone to the team, giving them the courage to keep going in the worst times.

Kitty felt a little guilty that perhaps she amongst others had put that expectations on him, to be the rock she could always depend on.

Though she knew he would have none of it, and would keep dealing with it in his own way. Bars and dives around the world, long rides, wilderness excursions, danger room marathons and losing himself in battle.

And there was the fact few could ever truly comprehend what he was going through, as there were almost none who go through what he had gone through and survive. Nor remain conscious of it all and feel the agony with the full force of his hyper-acute senses.

With a shudder, it hit Kitty that this reality was hers now as well.

As with all mutant powers, they were a double-edged sword, both gift and curse at one and the same time. Just as mutants themselves were something both more and less than human.

Logan, and now her own, ability to deal with virtually any injury, poison or disease meant they could survive almost anything, their bodies repairing so perfectly it would be as though nothing had ever happened to them.

But it also meant they would have to live through all those moments, in full technicolour, through things no one else could survive, carrying the psychic scars and trauma that the healing factor couldn't do anything about, with them.

And that would be for a very long time potentially.

Kitty hadn't been able to wrap her head around that reality yet. At the age she was, she wasn't sure she could really grasp the longevity and potential agelessness that was hers now.

Again, both a blessing and a curse. She might live, just as Logan already had, to see lifetimes. See and experience all the future had in store, never knowing the depredations, decay and humiliations of age upon her body or her physical and mental faculties.

But she would also see lifetimes of family and friends grow old and die whilst she remained ageless and unchanging.

Immortality might not be so great when you're the only one blessed with it, surrounded by world of mortality and death and the graves of everyone you loved.

You could almost understand why Sabertooth and Raven had turned out as they had.

Kitty shock herself free of the depressing turn her thoughts had taken. Logan would be there, as well as others, and it hasn't broken him or his zest for life and ability to love.

After all, no one knew when someone they loved would die, or if they would outlive them.

And, Kitty thought with a bit of dark humour, that 'virtually' part of dealing with any injury, poison or disease was the crucial bit, as Logan's crucifixion and torture for days had proved, straining his healing factor's ability to deal with the constant damage. After that it hadn't worked right, only being compounded by having his healing factor deactivated on Genosha, until their fateful encounter with Fabian Cortez.

The two were close now the Reavers' base. The scent of death, decay, burnt wood, metal and acrid plastic smell of melted electronics, strong, but nothing else.

No signs of life at all, cybernetic or otherwise.

And by the look on Logan's face, an odd juxtaposition of relief and concern, that he wasn't getting anything more than she was.

For moment, just before the ramshackle and now burnt out abandoned settlement Logan paused, looking at the ground where two posts of wood jutted out at an angle towards each other, ends jagged and splintered where whatever structure they'd been holding up had been broken off.

It only took Kitty a second to realise with horror what structure it had been, and why Logan had paused.

Kitty could think of nothing to do or say that felt adequate, and so she just silently placed her hand in his shoulder, standing with him.

They stayed like that for a second, before Logan just looked at her and nodded slightly in thanks, before moving into the Reavers' deathly silent base, as Kitty followed.

For a moment, Kitty felt like she was on cloud nine.

Often a man of few words, particularly in relation to whatever was going on with him personally, that nod meant more to Kitty than all the thank yous in the world ever could.

An elation that died as soon as Kitty leapt onto the roof of one of the few ramshackle huts still standing. Her breath caught at the smoking ruin spread out before her.

Most of the former settlement was gone, burnt down to the ground. Charred and splintered wooden posts reached towards the sky like ghostly, skeletal fingers from the still smouldering, ash-blackened ground that demarcated where the buildings had been.

Across the churned up, blackened and cratered ground indicating the intense battle that had taken place, the sand melted to glass in places from the searing heat of plasma weapons set on maximum.

But all that paled before the sickly-sweet stench of burnt and rotting flesh, laced through with scents of melted electronics and metal.

Kitty's keen eyes pierced the smoke still rising from the charred settlement, making out the broken, shattered remains of cybernetic limbs and other remains fused to the burnt and decaying body parts, often reduced to nothing more than charred bone, scattered throughout the smouldering debris of the ruined settlement.

As the two of them made their way silently through the devastation, they approached the smoking remains of what would have been a central building, they came across a burnt out remains of what seemed like the lower half of a tiny tank. It had fallen onto it's side, it's treads torn and shattered.

Kitty caught sight of the remains of a upper torso nearby, now nothing but a charred rib cage and blackened strips of cooked flesh and melted cybernetics.

"Bonebreaker," Logan whispered so low it was barely indistinguishable from his near silent breathing, something no one without their hearing would ever have caught.

Kitty cast on last glance at the ruined remains of the former Reaver, before following Logan as he pushed forward further into the remains of the central building, coming to stand before an entrance into the underground lair below, that Logan had told them about.

With both Reaver and Hunter remains surrounding it, the once hidden walkway was scorched by intense plasma fire, it's steel walls buckled by explosions and dented by machine gun fire.

Logan paused before the remains of a cybernetic leg and whispered, "Pretty Boy, probably."

The two descended through the entrance, carefully making their way through the battle-scarred and ruined remains of the Reavers' high-tech underground base, whose contrast with the abandoned, turn of the century ramshackle settlement above couldn't be more jarring.

Everywhere the two of them went were more signs of the battle they had missed. Metal walls buckled, warped, and melted by explosions, plasma and machine gun fire.

Some rooms and corridors had caved in. Everywhere electronics and computer terminals were shattered or burnt out, wires still sparking in many places, with the odd fire here and there still smouldering.

The base's lighting still flickered fitfully in a few places, though it had died throughout much of the underground corridors and rooms, shrouding everything in deep shadow.

Kitty new eyes pierced the darkness that swallowed much of the underground base, though at times she wished it hadn't as she and Logan grimly passed further remains of the former Reavers.

Then they came into what Logan had told them was the main surveillance room, shattered and torn apart by an intense firefight.

The far side of the chamber from where Logan and she has entered that had, according to the layout Logan had detailed, once contained banks of surveillance monitors and holo-displays, had collapsed into a mass of smoking rubble and twisted and melted metal, the metallic taste of melted steel and the acrid stench of burnt plastic almost overpowering to her senses.

That, and the sickly-sweet scent of burnt and decayed flesh and coagulated blood that was weaved through it.

It's source the remains of cybernetic body, half buried admist the rubble. The surface of the cyborg's robotic body was once shinning silver and gold, was now battered and scorched by numerous plasma bolts. However it looked like, unlike many of the Reavers, the armoured body had held up against that barrage.

What had finished this Reaver was the many, and very familiar, triple cuts and slashes, that had sheered through the Reavers' armoured body as though it were made of tissue paper, tearing it to shreds.

Flies buzzed around where cyborg's head had been, the drying blood thick and clotted.

Kitty almost retched when she caught of the shredded and bloody pieces of the Reavers' head, brains and cybernetics implants, strewn across the rubble, bits of blonde hair detectable here and there.

"Pierce," Logan whispered flatly. "Looks like his karma caught up with him."

Logan paused for a moment longer, an unreadable expression on his face as he regarded the remains of the man who together with the rest of the Reavers had crucified and tortured him for days, before looking back.

Kitty wasn't sure how she felt either. She was glad at least Pierce and the Reavers' were gone, their campaign against the X-Men in general, and Logan particularly since he'd escaped their clutches with Jubilee's aid, over.

From time travelling jaunts fighting Deathstrike and Nazis with Puck of Alpha Flight across late 1930's civil war Spain, having to deal with two androids designed to kill him, Albert and Elsie-Dee, who had both turned against their programming after Logan was willing to sacrifice himself to save Elsie-Dee, and battles with Deathstrike and Sabertooth in Times Square, the campaign had been relentless.

A part of her, fuelled by the anger and hatred she felt for Pierce for all he had put Logan through, all the suffering Hellfire's former White King had caused to him and others Kitty loved, was satisfied that he'd been killed and hoped it hurt going out.

That was the colder, harder part of her where Ogun, and now the white-hot rage of the berserker beast she'd inherited from Logan, lived in her soul.

But the rest of her knew she'd been raised and taught better than that. It wasn't the way Xavier had shown them, or how Logan and Ororo had brought her up.

She might kill when she had to, that was the harsh reality of the life she lived in. However, to delight in the pain, suffering and death of another, even an enemy that had had tried to kill them and has hurt those she loved so badly, would be to take a step towards the darkness Ogun had tried to drown her soul in years ago.

That was the world Frost and Pierce himself had dwelt in, so consumed by hatred and nursing grudges they became pitiful and alone.

Minds and abilities turned to nothing but the pain and suffering of their enemies, and see themselves standing over others, self-absorbed, life empty of anything but obsessions with power and getting even.

Kitty didn't need such a cancer eating away at her soul, and turned from the seductive temptation to give into it. She wouldn't give Pierce that kind of victory and turned away from his remains, putting her hand on Logan's shoulder for a moment, and could only guess what he was feeling.

Logan looked back at her, the slightest of smiles gracing his face, "I'm alright kid. Can't say I'm sorry the bastard's dead, an' the Reavers' with him by the looks of it, but it's no like I had to be the one to do him in myself. Dead is dead. Lest I don't need to watch my back for his next attack an' worry about innocent people an' friends gettin' caught in the crossfire."

"Besides," Logan continued, 'the more important thing is who took 'em out, cause as much as I would normally be fine with my enemies doin' the downtown stomp on each other if I'm right as to the reason they were here, it doesn't bode well for us. Besides, sometimes it's better the devil you know."

Kitty snorted quietly, "better no devils at all."

"Wouldn't that be nice," Logan chuckled, "but doesn't look like we'll be free of 'em anytime soon."

Leaving Peirce's remains behind Kitty and Logan followed the marks of battle, coming upon the remains of a Hunter. It's gunmetal black armoured body had been torn to pieces, just outside the entrance of what had been a secret entrance into a tunnel beyond, blackened and scorched with from blaster bolts.

The edges of the cuts that torn the cyborg's body to pieces were smooth, even to Kitty's sharp eyes, as though the armoured body had offered little resistance against whatever had sliced through it. Many injuries comprised four or five parallel cuts, giving Kitty a pretty good idea who'd been the cause, as there was only one thing that could make cuts like that.

Something Kitty knew all to well, as she unconsciously flexed her wrists, feeling the two adamantium claws waiting to be unleashed within.

"Yuriko," Logan confirmed, "looks like there was s hell of a fight here, and a remaining Reaver together with Yuriko fell back in a fighting retreat, and this Hunter came off the worse ."

Logan took Kitty through the pattern of pattern of holes, cuts, blackened and melted scorch marks of the numerous bullets and blaster bolts, adamantium and energy claws. The barely discernible scuff marks and tiny bits of fabric torn from the clothing of Deathstrike wore, and the layers of the remaining scents.

She felt like Dr Watson being guided by Sherlock Holmes as he re-constructed the scene of the crime.

A fierce Sherlock Holmes with claws and wild, untameable hair, Kitty giggled to herself.

Logan looked at her with raised eyebrow as the two made their way into the tunnel. The air was hot, stuffy and oppressive, driving any mirth from Kitty, as she caught the strong scent of burnt flesh and melted metal, and soon enough her eyes made out in the dim light cast by the few flickering lights left, the burnt out and twisted remains of a Reaver.

The Reaver had been a woman once. The remains of her robotic body revealed that her metallic "skin" would have had a bright silver and golden finish. Her burnt out skull was fused with a metal face plate covering what would have been the upper part of her face, with a few tufts of blonde hair remaining her and there.

Two single blades extended from her hands, jammed into the remains of a Hunter she'd been fighting with, who's head and power source were gone, ripped out by Deathstrike's claws by the looks of things.

"I don't remember her from your description of the Reavers," Kitty whispered.

"Don't recognise her myself," Logan commented, whispering back. "Looks like someone new. An' it looks like Pierce gave her the full treatment, cybered her up completely. Wonder want he planned to use her for, nothin' good probably. Looks like Yuriko made it out, though it looks like she was the only one left at this point. Let's keep goin', an' follow this trail until the end."

"You think the Hunters managed to take Deathstrike out?" Kitty whispered.

"An' deprive me of her delightful company, I should be so lucky," Logan laughed quietly in return.

After this, they followed the tunnel to the end, their senses picking up the markings of Deathstrike's hurried flight, coming to shaft that would have lead upwards, to the surface, if wasn't collapsed in, the smell of C4 explosives still lingering enough for Kitty and Logan to catch.

"Probably explosives Pierce had placed around the exit to blow it for just this kinda situation," Logan said. "Not that it did him any good, but it looks like it might have saved Yuriko's ass."

"It might have stopped the Hunters pursuing her," Kitty replied, "but it won't stop us."

Kitty suppressed a grin as Logan grumbled under his breath as she made ready to phase up through the rubble.

He was still uncomfortable phasing, or ghosting as they'd come to call it, through a longer stretch of solid material. Of that strange and claustrophobic feeling, all sounds muted and everything dark, the eerie sensation of matter passing through your whole body as your insubstantial form moved through it.

For Kitty it was second nature now, but she remembered it took some getting used to, as well as suppressing the sense of panic that hit you, since you couldn't see or breath whilst moving through a solid mass.

Then she was moving up through the rubble and dirt, her insubstantial form ascending up through it as easily as it did through the air.

Despite the total darkness, Kitty always had an instinctual spatial awareness of here immediate environment, a gift to help her navigate that came with her ability. One now only enhanced thanks to hyper senses she now possessed. She could feel from the minutest vibrations through the dirt, steel and rubble that conveyed the change in density of the air filled tunnel compared to the steel rock and dirt around it, as well the air moving across the surface of Australian outback above her.

As a result, she had no worries about Logan losing his way, and a moment later she emerged out a small crater filled with rubble that marked the once secret exit to the Reavers' tunnel, coming out just before the ridge of a slight rise. The wide, desert like landscape of the Australian outback stretched out before her, the burning remains of the Reavers settlement far back behind her now.

A moment later Logan appeared, materialising from the rubble like a vengeful phantom rising from it's grave, pale white and transparent, eyes blazing red.

A rather terrifying visage the first time Kitty had seen it, and still it remained a little disconcerting to see him like this now.

Then, a spilt second later, his body solidified, pale white fading into his familiar solid flesh and bone body, red glowing eyes shifting back to the familiar cobalt blue.

Logan was just about to say something, probably another grumble about having to phase through the ground, before he suddenly swore, "Dammit, I'd really hoped I was wrong."

"Gateway?" Kitty asked, already knowing the answer.

Logan just nodded as he crouched down, following the now near invisible markings in the ground and lingering scents.

"Yuriko was stood here, an' looks like Gateway 'ported her away just as the remaining Hunters arrived an' sprung their attack," he said. "an' thanks to that, it left Gateway open an' exposed. They got him with a blaster bolt, an' he dropped to the floor."

He pointed to slight remaining marks of what might have been the imprint of a body, combined with the stronger presence of a male scent Kitty caught that was distinct from that of Deathstrike and the Hunters. It was all natural. Earthy as though one with the environment around them, yet at the same time with the hint of something indescribable. It was like a near infinite number of different places and environments, mingled and present, all at once, within his scent.

"Do you think they killed him?" Kitty asked.

"No," Logan replied. "There's no real smell of burnt flesh mixed with Gateway's scent, an' that ozone scent the bolts left tearin' through the air ain't that of plasma weapons set to kill. Unlike the Reavers, they wanted Gateway alive."

Together they moved to a point just a little further ahead, following the scents of Gateway and the Hunters, to open area of desert, three small depressions still evident in the ground.

The mingled scents of machine oil, aviation fuel and metal still hung over the area.

"A aircraft was here," Kitty whispered, "a helicopter maybe. That's what dropped them off, and how they got out of here, with Gateway in tow."

"Yeah," Logan replied, "heavy transport aircraft. Probably dropped the Hunters at a insertion point far back, and they made their way to the Reavers' base stealthy on foot. Then it came in to pick up Gateway along with those that survived their battle with the Reavers."

With a gentle telepathic pulse, Jean let them know she was on her way to join them, having remained in telepathic contact through the advanced scouting operation, when Logan made the slightest motion of his hand, as though continuing to gesture towards the faints tracks left on the ground, but Kitty caught it.

It, and he look of warning he gave her out the corner of his eye, whilst giving no outward impression anything was wrong.

Reaching out with her new senses, Kitty caught it. A strange absence or muting in the matrix of scents, sounds and vibrations around them, strange voids moving towards them.

Six of them, and as she concentrated, focusing, Kitty could just make out, at the edge of even her hearing, the sounds of metal scraping lightly on gritty sand, the pulse and hum of electrical power united and merged with a beat that sounded almost like a heartbeat, and the distinctive whir and whine of cybernetics.

It was familiar, one she just encountered just the night before.

Hunters. Closing in on them.

Kitty caught Logan's eye in a moment of silent communication, playing possum as they allowed their cloaked enemies draw closer, within striking distance.

She saw Logan's muscles flexing beneath his arms, ready to unleash his claws, her own itching to burst free.

Then, with a final look, the Hunters almost upon them, his eyes blazed red, all his body but his chest transmuting into that terrifying wraith form, as Kitty phased, leaping through his momentarily solid chest like lightning at the Hunter behind him posed to strike. Likewise Logan sprang with blinding fury at the cybernetic assassin behind her.

The surgical song of their claws bursting free rang out across the vast, open Outback as they tore into the unsuspecting Hunters, as the battle was joined.