Warning: This chapter contains horror and gore. If you find this upsetting please skip this chapter.
I woke up feeling groggy and confused. Moving slightly I gasped as pain radiated through my body, starting from the centre of my chest and moving rapidly though my body. Recognising the cold metal of a sterile table beneath my hospital gown covered body my heart thudded in my chest.
"Genesis is awake. Set up the first experiment phase."
The sound of that voice sent shivers of revulsion through me and, despite the pain burning through my body; I tensed and snapped my gaze over toward the sound of the voice. Instantly I recognised the face that haunted my nightmares. Doctor Mortimer was standing on the other side of a pane of bullet-proof glass set into the metal wall of my new prison. To anyone else he would look like a completely harmless old man. He used this to his advantage. The innocuous persona he put forward hid truly cruel intentions and a diabolical mind.
With a cold smile he leaned over a small microphone sitting in front of him, "Welcome back, Genesis."
Frantically I tried to tug at the metal cuffs that bound me chest, wrist, and ankle to the table in the middle of the room. I hissed as shocks of electricity ran up and down my arms and legs and turned angry eyes onto the monster watching me.
"Don't fight this. It will only make it hurt more," he spoke almost kindly.
Sneering I used my powers to force a crack through the glass in front of his face. He started at the noise and then glared. Turning to the group of assistants standing behind him waiting for his orders, he waved two of them off out of the small observation room and then turned back to me.
"I told you not to fight, Genesis."
A second later agony exploded through my chest and I screamed as the band of metal there collapsed against my torso and compressed my ribs. Blood splashed across my face as my heart and lungs were crushed and then everything went dark.
I woke up; once more bound with metal to that table, the medical gown I had been dressed in encrusted with brown blood that looked days old. I wondered emotionlessly how long it had taken my body to restart. Closing my eyes I tried to block out what had happened and what I knew would happen to me. Slipping into my mind I brought up the memory of Logan's face as he smiled at me, the crease that was usually between his eyebrows smooth as his eyes crinkled at the corners with laugh-lines. I remembered the feeling of running my hands through his soft hair and over the rough facial hair on his cheeks. And, lastly, I remembered how it felt to kiss him, the taste of his lips and skin, and the feeling of being completely safe in his arms.
A sudden stab of pain in my arm dragged me from my thoughts and I hissed in a breath, turning my head to see a masked figure leaning over me, pulling the needle of a syringe from the crease of my arm, the vial full of my blood.
"Your blood is going to help me change the world," the voice was female and I looked up into her brown eyes.
"Doctor Cramer," Mortimer's voice came from behind the woman standing over me, "Is the experiment stable enough to continue?"
The woman turned, slipping the vial of my blood into her lab coat pocket," Yes, Doctor, she is."
"Good," he smirked from behind the still cracked viewing window. "Then we will begin once you have left the room."
With a nod to him, Doctor Cramer smirked down at me and then turned and left my cell.
Flinching as the heavy blast door clanged shut behind her and its heavy locks grated into place I closed my eyes and let my mind drift back to Logan and our life together at the mansion. I tried to block out the sound of a bone saw starting up with the memory of rides on the back of the motorcycle Logan usually 'borrowed' from the school's car garage. The feeling of my flesh being cut open and pealed back to reveal the muscle beneath shattered those thoughts and I screamed as the excruciating torture continued. It wasn't long before the pain became too much and I lost consciousness, welcoming the black as a way to escape to dreams of Logan and my family at Professor Xavier's school.
I woke up once again to white hot pain running through my legs and didn't dare look down to see them knowing that the sight of what they had done to me would haunt me if I did.
The restraints that had been around me when I first woke up lay unlocked and open. However, I didn't have the strength to even sit up, but considering the extent of the experimentation they had done to me I knew it probably wasn't a good idea to even try and get up. Breathing hard I felt the panic and fear well up inside wondering if Storm was okay, if the others had found her and then realised I was taken. Tears filled my eyes at the thought of Logan finding my blood but nothing else and for the first time ever in the clutches of Doctor Mortimer, I cried. Tears slid out of the corners of my eyes and into my hairline as I covered my face with my hands to muffle my sobs.
Calming down slightly I hoped with everything I had that no one would try and find me. Doctor Mortimer and whoever he worked with were more powerful than I had ever known if they were able to find me so easily and I knew that anyone who came after me would pay a high price if they tried to save me.
The agent or assassin who had come for me was familiar. I had heard whispers of what and who he was. An asset of Hydra, he was especially skilled at taking down his targets and making it look as messy and suspect as possible, or not, depending on what Hydra wanted.
Where I was being kept was another problem. The walls were no doubt made of two sheets of metal at least three feet thick each with a cement layer between. Both metal sheets were electrified so that even if I was able to make my way through one the charges in the other would disrupt my powers. Then there were soldiers with guns and tasers that would be guarding every exit and the hallway outside my cell as well as the rabbit warren of hallways and tunnels outside it before I could ever even make it near the outer parts of the facility.
Closing my eyes against the reality of what my life would be like now and the thought of never seeing Logan again or ever feeling his arms around me, I tried to stay calm.
The experimentation continued within the next hour or so. I lay on that table and endured agonising torture after excruciating procedures not knowing how long I had been with there and every day losing a bit more of myself. When they took my sight it was almost a relief to not have to look at Mortimer's face every time I woke up from dying or losing consciousness.
Once in a while Mortimer would show groups of scientists or military through the facility, leaving me for last as his prized experiment. They would be ushered into the cell where I was held and then he would demonstrate my healing capabilities by cutting into me while they watched. They would discuss the positive outcomes if he could isolate my mutant gene and produce a serum that would help injured soldiers regenerate limbs or heal wounds. He would also show them videos of my matter controlling mutation, the power too dangerous to see first-hand while they were in the room, and that would set off a whole new discussion on how to use my mutant gene to help win wars or destroy enemies.
At night, when the procedures finished for the day and I was alone in the darkness, I would open my mind and let my powers reach out to Logan. It had been another facet of my mutation that the Professor and I had just started to work on when I became a part of the X-Men. We had soon found that I could use my matter manipulation to touch the mind of another person, mutant or human, and then push my thoughts or ideas into their minds using my 'echo' transferral. In the same way I could read a person's mind. The only draw-back was that, as we found out, I needed to know the person through touch before I tried to put my thoughts into their minds.
I know I had slipped and cried out to Logan, the Professor and Storm through this connection a few times while I was being tortured and hoped fervently that it hadn't been more than a stray thought that I forced on them knowing that if it had been more I could well have physically hurt them, if not worse.
And so, as I once again opened my mind and reached out with my mutation to Logan after one particularly gruesome waking dissection, I was shocked to see Mortimer's face in his mind. Knowing he had never seen the monster before I panicked.
Forcing myself into a seated position I closed my still sightless eyes and tried to link with him again. I was sick with worry by the time I finally connected with him but what I saw in his mind made me cry out in shock. Flashes of a video of me using my control over matter filled his mind and I knew he was somewhere in the facility. Ignoring the pain radiating through my body and the fact that my torso was still knitting itself back together under my paper gown, I broke the connection and turned and lifted my legs over the edge of the table. Biting back a scream as the pain worsened I dropped heavily to my feet off the side and had to hold onto the table as my knees gave way. Half bent over I turned to where I knew the viewing window with its glass window was. The bullet-proof glass was the weakest point in the room and I reached out with my mutation toward it.
"Genesis, you have guests," Mortimer's voice coming over the speaker broke through my concentration. "Would you like to see them?"
My heart sank at his words and I felt the electrical charge from the chip they had surgically implanted in the optic chasm where my optic nerves met switch off and my sight returned. What I saw made my stomach heave and my heart clench in fear. Logan, Remy, and Scott stood behind Mortimer with guns trained at their heads and guards surrounding them. I saw the rage in Logan's eyes and knew he would do something to get himself hurt or killed to try and save me.
At Mortimer's cruel smirk I saw red. The metal walls around me started to groan as I lost control of my powers. The moment of fear I saw in Mortimer's eyes was enough to spur me on. I kept my cold gaze on him and reached out and the glass window between us shattered with a loud crash and fell to the floor.
"Shoot them!" Mortimer screamed at the guards.
Before they could pull the triggers on their guns I turned my eyes on them and every weapon crumpled in their hands. A siren started to wail and I knew more guards were coming. Breathing hard I used my power in a way I had only done a few times before as I stepped toward the now empty window frame. Focussing on the matter that made up Remy and Scott's bodies I pulled them apart and remade their bodies outside the facility where I knew they were safe, sensing that where I was being held was a bunker under a deep river and the X-Jet and Storm and Kurt were close by.
More soldiers ran into the room and surrounded me while others started to fight Logan. My rage only grew and I controlled the bullets and taser wires they shot at me before destroying their weapons and unmaking their bodies, their screams ringing in my ears. I yelled in anger as one stabbed me in the chest with a huge bowie knife and closed my hand around his throat squeezing it as I peeled the flesh from his body with my mind. Others tried to get to me but my mutation was in total control and the animal side of myself had taken over, ripping every soldier that came into the room to pieces, blood spraying over my face and body and painting the walls crimson. The air became heavy with the scent of death.
And then it was over and all that stood between me and Logan was Doctor Mortimer. I stepped over the mangled remains of his soldiers and reached out a hand, drawing his body over the control desk and through the viewing window casement until the column of his throat was in my hand.
"It's too late, Genesis," he coughed out around the pressure I was putting on his throat.
Sneering I saw him flick the small switch on the hand-held remote that turned the electric current back on in the chip within my brain, stealing my sight once more.
However, I was too feral to allow that to happen again and with the strength of my freed power finally unleashed I ripped the chip from my own body, letting the matter that it was formed from slide down my cheeks mixed with my bloody tears, "You're the one that's too late, old man," I hissed tightening my grip around his throat.
But the flicker an echo of his memory licked across my mind and I saw what he had done. To protect himself and obliterate me he had set charges into the foundations of the bunker and when they blew it would bring the full weight of the gallons of river water above us, as well as the hundreds of tonnes of concrete and steel down, killing everyone left in the facility.
I let him go and he struggled to stay standing before me, coughing and gagging as he dragged air into his oxygen deprived lungs. Smiling cruelly I waited until he looked at me again and then reached out with one hand.
There was a series of sickening snaps and his chest started to implode, blood splattering the ground at his feet as his eyes widened in shock and a gut wrenching scream of agony left his open mouth before, with a final crack, I shattered his spine and skull and let his battered corpse drop to the floor.
Lifting my gaze from the man that once ruled my nightmares I looked into Logan's eyes. Keeping his gaze locked with mine he jumped the control desk and viewing window and walked toward me. Ignoring Mortimer's body he stopped in front of me and then reached out and cupped my jaw, brushing his thumb over my cheek.
Tears filled my eyes and I closed them leaning into his touch, my tears sliding down to mix with the blood and gore on my skin.
"You came for me," I whispered reaching up to fist my hands at the open neck of his X-Men suit.
He pressed his forehead to mine, his free arm wrapping around my back as his fingers laced through my loose, matted hair, "I'll always come for you," he promised his voice rough with emotion.
"I know," I murmured. Feeling my heart break I opened my eyes to look into the deep hazel of his gaze, "I'm sorry."
He tensed but I knew he couldn't stop me as I unmade his body just as the charges blew and rebuilt it near where Scott and Remy stood his angry yell echoing in my ears and then, with an ear-splitting roar, the room collapsed.
Scott and Remy had to hold Logan back when he appeared next to them, Storm and Kurt leaving the X-Jet to watch with them as, with a rumble that shook the earth beneath their feet, the river started to swirl and roll before the waters settled at a lower level and bodies and equipment began floating to the surface.
"Get into the Blackbird and we'll see if we can find her," Storm was the first to speak, her emotions hidden behind a reserved mask of professionalism.
Remy had to physically drag Logan away from the river's edge and onto the large jet and even then he refused to sit down. Once they were hovering over the water he moved to a window and stared out searching the calm waters for a flash of Jenna's rave hair or the red and grey of her blood-stained hospital gown.
"There!" Kurt yelled out after two hours of searching.
Scott and Storm manoeuvred the jet over an area of the river where a tangle of wires and a plastic box floated, a scrap of crimson stained material and a lock of black hair the only thing visible under the mass of wires.
Logan slammed his hand against the release button that opened the Blackbird's ramp and climbed down the stairs to reach into the river. His fingers closed around a slim wrist and he pulled Jenna's body out of the water where it had been floating face-down. When she was secure in his arms he turned and walked silently into the hold of the jet, his eyes only on her face.
The others quietly took in her limp form in his arms and Remy turned away, tears filling his flashing gaze. Storm quickly undid her seat belt and rushed to help Logan set Jenna's body down on a small fold-away bunk set into the wall of the jet. She swiftly and efficiently stripped the small brunette and covered her in a specially designed blanket to keep her body warm before she set up a heart monitor and attached it to Jenna's chest. Everyone strained to hear the mechanic beeping that would tell them she was still alive but they were met by silence. Logan bowed his head over her hand where he knelt beside the cot, clutching it tightly.
"We need to get her back to the Professor," Scott was the first to speak up and turned back to switching on controls at the panel in front of him as the others moved to belt themselves in while he steered the jet in the direction of the mansion. Logan, however, refused to leave Jenna's side and sat on the floor opposite the cot, his back pressed to the jet wall and his arms lying on top of his raised knees, his hands hanging uselessly between his knees as he stared at the still face of the woman he loved, willing her heart to start beating again.