Chapter 3: The Fight
A quarter hour later, Kurt and Logan were in the familiar midst of a bareknuckle brawl with a group of perimeter guards. A flurry of Kurt's teleports popped around Logan's slashing, kicking body. Each time Kurt 'ported, he materialized just long enough to land a well-placed blow so that all Logan saw was a fragmented set of fists, feet, and, no doubt most unnerving to their opponents, a sharply jerking, forked tail. Once they'd disabled the squad between them, Kurt appeared whole at Logan's side. His tail dropped several guns at their feet.
"This is no time to get fancy," Logan reminded him.
"I agree," said Kurt. "But it is also not a time to leave dangerous weapons in the hands of our opponents if we can help it."
"What's next?"
"We need to get into that building," said Kurt, gesturing to a seemingly derelict, medium-sized office tower some 400 meters to the west. Most of the windows were broken, the concrete crumbling in several spots.
"Top or bottom?"
"Nein. Ororo gave us the floor plan. I can take us inside."
"You sure?"
"Are you?"
"Let's saddle up."
Two nearly spontaneous "bamfs," a brimstone stench, and a faintly turned stomach had Logan appear, by Kurt's side, amid a crush of broken, discarded office supplies. A hail of gunfire greeted them almost immediately as Kurt teleported them a second time to a corner behind a pile of debris, including a large, metal desktop that Logan promptly kicked onto its side to serve as a shied. Kurt crouched tightly next to him. Several bullets wracked and dented the desktop's metal hide as Logan peeked his head around its corner to get a look at the shooters.
"You get in behind," said Logan. "I'll make sure they're looking at me when you get there."
"Ja."
In the same moment that Kurt vanished, Logan lunged forward. At least two bullets ripped into his guts and shoulders, one just grazing his temple. Within seconds, a pile of wounded, unconscious bodies lay at Kurt and Logan's feet.
"Are you okay?" asked Kurt.
Logan nodded. "Next?"
"We need to go floor by floor. We have no idea how many there are, or where the hostages might be."
At that moment, a cry of pain or fear echoed a loud, crackling energy discharge.
"That's a laser rifle," said Logan. "Three above."
"Wunderbar. That wasn't in the briefing."
"We need to move quick. You ready?"
"Let's go."
Logan wrenched Kurt's body to the ground as soon as they materialized, just saving him from being sliced in two by a sizzling bolt of energy. Kurt 'ported them away to the floor above, but not in time to keep Logan from being clipped in the shoulder.
"Thanks," Kurt panted as they materialized. "That wasn't such a great idea. I didn't think there'd be so many."
Blood was oozing profusely from Logan's long, clean cut.
"Logan—!Your arm…?"
It was amazing to Logan how alarmed Kurt could look at his injuries knowing so well how quickly they'd heal.
"It'll be fine in a minute. How do you want to do this?"
"I can get down there and start teleporting the hostages if you're able to distract the soldiers. But with laser rifles there's always danger of collateral damage. We can't risk the chance of them hitting any adjacent buildings—some of them are occupied."
"Then we need to be fast," said Logan. "I counted 26 hostages, 6 guards but probably more on the way. How many trips will it take you to evacuate?"
"At least three, I think, if I'm going to get them far enough away."
"Play it safe. Take four. We'll try to disable as many guards as we can on the first pass, then deal with them as they come while you finish evacuating."
"Ja. You ready?"
Logan flexed his shoulder. The blood had already coagulated and the edges of the wound were starting to knit. "Let's do it."
The next two minutes were a blur of crunching bones and metal, screams, and tangled arms and legs. Kurt had just returned from dropping off the third group of hostages when the reinforcements arrived, ten large men fully equipped with state-of-the-art body armour and two more laser rifles between them. Logan saw Kurt somersault high into the air above one of the rifle's sizzling bolts; he knew the fact that Kurt didn't simply teleport to avoid the bolt must mean he was tired from doing the evacuations, looking to conserve energy to make sure he had enough strength for the final effort. Even without teleporting, though, Kurt reached the new group in two leaps while Logan was still tied up with the final member of the original squad. Kurt used one man's helmeted head as a hand prop for two footed kick to the unprotected neck of one of the laser rifle-armed men, staggering him and giving Kurt a window of opportunity to use his tail to fling the dangerous weapon out of the action. But in the moment it took for Kurt to remove the rifle, he left himself open to a half-connecting punch to the side of the head that disoriented him just long enough for another man to land a heavy-booted kick to the side of his face.
Logan heard the soft crunch of Kurt's bones and the grunt of pain that echoed it like a knife through his heart.
"Elf!"
Dispatching his final sparring partner with a decisive blow, Logan hurried, claws barred, into the midst of the reinforcements. Two quick, sharp swipes cleared a path to Kurt. For a moment they fought back to back against the tide closing in on them, Logan feeling Kurt's tail lash across him in the close quarters.
"Kurt—get the rest of the hostages out of here!"
"I won't leave you—there are too many!"
"No there ain't."
"Logan—!"
"Go!"
Concern for the hostages, who were still huddled, terrified but surprisingly quiet in the far corner of the room, made Kurt's choice for him. He vaunted off one man and over another, using a whipping twist of his tail around a third's neck to toss him into one of his companions as he extricated himself from the fight. As Kurt readied the hostages for evacuation, Logan heard but didn't see the preparatory charge of the remaining laser rifle; but he didn't have to see to know where the shot would be headed, and although Kurt had mutant reflexes he didn't have eyes in the back of his head, not to mention that fact that he was also partly spent. Logan leapt in the direction of the shooter and stopped him the surest, fastest way he knew how. Not for the first time, he hoped Kurt would forgive him.
The sound of the blood spattering back against Logan's mask was followed a second later by the combusting air of Kurt's safe and successful teleport of the hostages. Logan drove his claws through several more armoured chests in the frenzied seconds that followed before things cleared out enough for him to refocus on non-lethal subjugation. By that point, however, several corpses already lay at his feet.
In just a few more minutes, the whole thing was over, Logan wiping sweat and blood from his face with the back of his hand, breathing deeply and slowly with a meditative, after-fight calm as he felt his many wounds begin to heal within and without his body. Logan waited for Kurt patiently. He knew there would be a painful scene, but he was prepared to face it; it wasn't the first difficult decision he'd made in his life and he knew it wouldn't be the last.
When Kurt finally did reappear amid the carnage, Logan felt justified in his actions just looking at him. Blood oozed from a gash that had torn his uniform across his ribs, and there was blood on his face, too, his right eye winching in pain at the corner of a fist-sized area of his cheekbone that was already darkening to a blue-black splotch. Logan has seen Kurt hurt much worse many times but it never got any easier. Smelling Kurt's blood dripping and drying in his fur, seeing the subtle hitches of his injury-damaged body as he moved, Logan felt like bringing the dead men back to life so he could have the pleasure of killing them again. Yet he was also ashamed of his thoughts—especially in front of Kurt.
As he absorbed the reality of the scene surrounding him, Kurt's reaction was, as Logan had expected, severe. At first his whole person seemed to whither in something like exhausted disappointment. Then, suddenly, his demeanour changed. His brow furrowed, his arms tensed his hands into tight fists, and his tail rose up to make sharp, threatening jabs at the air behind his head.
"What the hell happened here?" he demanded, accent thick with anger.
"I had to make a decision," said Logan, keeping his voice carefully neutral. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry?" Kurt repeated incredulously, white-booted feet stepping over corpses as he advanced on Logan, eyes burning, fangs barred, tail still darting, threatening. Even Logan sometimes forgot how truly menacing Kurt could make himself when he wanted to. In such a moment of hot, severe fury, he truly resembled a vengeful demon. And then there was the accent that, when Kurt became intensely angry, always conjured up bad memories that Logan couldn't quite grasp.
"I leave for a moment, and these people end up dead! We could have found a better way!"
"Kurt," Logan began, still forcing himself to stay calm. "These guys had laser rifles and they were gunning for blood. The amount of firepower they had with them—They knew what they were getting into and these civilians didn't deserve—"
"You think I don't know that?" Kurt took another quick, forceful step toward him as he cut him off mid-speech. "Have you forgotten how many years we've done this together?"
"Have you?"
"You know what happened! You weren't just thinking of hostages and civilians you were thinking of…" he growled with frustration at he tailed off, a two-fingered hand clutching his temples.
"He would have—"
"Do not lie to me!" Kurt barked. "Do not start with me if you're going to lie!"
"Hey, you're the one started this, whatever this is."
Kurt pivoted away from him with an angry, dismissive wave of his hand. "No you started it, Wolverine! You started it when you decided to disregard my command and take things into your own hands! People wonder why I've always proven such an ineffective leader of the X-Men. How can I be expected to lead anyone here toward anything when even my closest friend doesn't respect my judgement? Mein Gott, Logan! When I led Excalibur, virtually shocked realizing how good I actually was at it, I had this premonition about my role within the X-Men, that maybe you all thought about me as your mascot rather than a full fledged team member as capable of leading as the rest of you. It was a terrifying thought for me, that even my own dearest friends might have been thinking about me that way…"
"Listen, Kurt…"
"And what's going on between you and Ororo, anyway?" Kurt blurted out unexpectedly. "It was always Jean with you, why now all of a sudden do you have to… Ach!"
Kurt punctuated his cry of frustration with a fearsome kick at the exposed concrete wall. But it wasn't truly fury anymore, just frustration; Logan knew he wasn't angry enough to be really off kilter, not angry enough to hurt himself. Still facing away from Logan, Kurt placed both his hands on the wall where he'd kicked it and sunk his head down between his arms, his whole lean body still taught with agitation, tail lowered but still darting jerkily.
"This ain't really about 'Ro, is it?" Logan said after a moment.
"No!"
"So what is it about? I mean really?"
"You, me… I don't know! I just don't know if I can do this anymore."
"Do what?"
"This… Trying to make excuses to myself for your behaviour, trying to convince myself that we're doing the right thing when the methods you use… they go against everything I believe in, everything that I want to believe is good about myself. You always want to be told you are not an animal… I need to make sure I can tell myself that I am not a monster."
"Elf…" Logan stepped forward to put his hand on his friend's shoulder but as he touched him Kurt recoiled so violently Logan almost thought he might attack.
"Don't—!"
Everything Kurt thought about saying died within him before reaching his lips. He'd said so much already that he wished he could take back; not because he hadn't meant it, or even because he was scared he'd hurt Logan's feelings, since he well knew Logan was more than capable of handling verbal abuse, even from a friend. Instead, he wanted to take it back because of what it did to him to be angry with his best friend. To hate Logan, to shut him out of his heart, was not something he wanted to do. Indeed, it was not something he was sure he was capable of doing. But Kurt knew: when Logan made the decision to switch to lethal force he hadn't just been worried about the hostages or the probably distant possibility of civilian casualties—he'd also acted to protect him. Not for the first time, Logan's brand of friendship had Kurt choking on a toxic mixture of guilt and gratitude.
"Call Storm," Kurt said finally. "I'll meet you outside. Then you can capitalize on your reputation with the locals to explain what happened. God knows they won't want to hear about it from me."
With his customary burst of smoke, Kurt disappeared. Slowly, deliberately, Logan unclipped his radio from his belt and punched in their team leader's frequency.
"'Ro? Yeah, it's over."