"Where the... hell... am I?" coughed Wolverine, waking up to find himself on a dusty, creaky wooden bed.
The room was small and dimly lit. It looked like a bedroom that belonged to a married couple. It was dusty. The windows cracked. Outside, the sky was a bright orange. Just across from the bed was a door. Wolverine stood up, feeling a little groggy, and he walked towards the door. After opening it he saw before him...
"Blink? Sunfire? Psylocke? What the hell are you guys doing here?"
"We are here because of the Purifiers." answered Beast, who had been sitting at a table in the corner the entire time "Wolverine. How are you my friend?"
"Hank?"
"That's right Wolverine." smiled Beast, stretching his left arm to offer Wolverine a seat "Sit down please, Logan."
Wolverine walked over to the empty chair and sat down at the table, across from Beast.
"How did I get here? The last thing I remember was being dragged around by Stryker's men."
"I brought you here." said Cable, walking through a door on the other side of the room.
"Nathaniel?"
"Yeah. It's me."
"You've gotten bigger." joked Wolverine.
"And you've gotten grayer." chuckled Cable.
"Haven't seen you since... you know."
"Yeah... I know."
Forty years ago...
"That's when it happened."
The Purifiers, led by Reverend William Stryker, barged through each room of the Mutant Academy, taking out as many mutants as possible... all but the Omega Levels. A young boy by the name of Nathaniel Summers was playing with toys in his mother's room.
"Scott, we can't leave him here." cried Jean "They'll find him if he tries to hide."
"What else can we do?" said Scott "These guys are everywhere around the school."
As the two argue about how to save their son from the invasion, the Purifiers knock down the door, immediately killing Scott.
"No!" shouts Jean, seeing her husband lying on the bed, lifeless.
Without hesitation, Jean scooped Nathaniel up in her arms and fought back the guards with her powers. She was able to make it the staircase in the main hall until she felt a sting in her right leg. She fell, rolling down the steps, but shielding her young child from harm. As the young Nathaniel cried Stryker himself approached Jean.
"Now you... would be useful."
Stryker smiled a menacing smile. He snatched the baby out of her arms. Jean tried to use her powers, but she couldn't, whatever had hit her caused her to lose them.
"Don't worry Jean, it's only temporary." informed Stryker "As for your baby..."
Purifiers surrounded the area as Jean stared a cold, icy stare at Stryker.
"We will take care of him."
Jean cried out as Stryker turned towards the door, but before he could leave a familiar face showed up in the crowd, slicing Purifiers left and right.
"Kill him!" Stryker ordered.
The Purifiers ran towards Wolverine with their tasers, but each of them fell. Stryker called for more men to come in and shoot the feral Wolverine. They shot round after round, but each bullet wound healed quickly and Wolverine rewarded the guards with claws to their throats. Jean looked up at Wolverine and begged him to get her son back as Stryker ran upstairs with Nathaniel in his arms.
"I'll get him back for you Jean. I promise."
Jean, feeling exhausted, closed her eyes and lay her on the floor. Wolverine walked up the stairs, cornering Stryker in one of the bedrooms.
"Let the kid go Stryker." demanded Wolverine.
Stryker, the sly devil he is kicked open the window behind him and dangled the baby outside.
"One step Wolverine and I drop him on his head!" yelled Stryker.
"You're actually willing to kill a child?!?"
"This thing is no child!" yelled Stryker "It is a spawn from Hell!"
Having enough of listening to the crazed reverend, Wolverine, with claws out, put a gash in Stryker's leg and arm. He jumped out of the window, grabbing Nathaniel, and falling safely to the ground. Wolverine fled into the woods to escape the onslaught, as Toad stood outside and watched.
"You did well Toad."
"Wow." sighed Sunfire "That was something."
"Yeah." started Nathaniel "It was."
"Nathan... I..."
"Please, Wolverine, call me Cable."
"Cable... I'm sorry."
"About what?"
"Your mother... I wanted to..."
"You don't have to say anything... I know... wherever she is... she's just glad that I'm alive."
"Cable... she's dead."
Cable looked at Wolverine with a cold stare.
"You don't know that."
The room suddenly began to quake.
"What the hell is that?" asked Wolverine, trying to keep his balance.
"They've found us." said Blink.
"We have to move." said Beast.
"Move?" asked Wolverine.
"It's the only way we're able to stay safe." explained Cable.
"Screw that. I say we go out there and tear 'em up." growled Wolverine.
"Logan!" shouted Cable, grabbing Wolverine by his right arm "You're coming with us. That's an order."
"I ain't going to be ordered around bub."
"Can we finish this squabble some other time, we must flee." Beast interrupted.
Cable lets go of Wolverine and the two, along with the other X-Men, follow him to an underground tunnel. The building behind them collapsed. Amidst the smoke of the debris stood Jason Stryker, the son of William Stryker.
"Grizzly. Wild Child. Sniff them out."
Behind Stryker stood two beastly figures. One small, with long hair and sharp teeth, the other large and hairy. The two sniffed around for traces of the X-Men, until they found the entrance to the tunnel which they had escaped, blocked off with debris.
"Come. We'll find another way." said Stryker, leading the two back to the helicopter which they rode in on.
"Tell me again why we're down here instead of being up there fighting." huffed Wolverine.
"Stryker." answered Cable.
"You mean he's still alive?"
"Not William Stryker. It's his son, Jason. In a lot of ways he's much worse than his father."
"What's so bad about him?"
"Well, first of all, instead of having a massive disdain for all mutants he sees mutants as tools."
"Tools?"
"Yes. He greatly believes in using all mutants for his own personal gain." explained Beast.
"I still don't see why we're running away from him."
"It's not running away." said Blink "We need time to think of our next move."
"Yeah? And what is your next move?" asked Wolverine.
"You're not going to like it." said Cable.
After reaching the end of the tunnel the X-Men climbed their way up into a campsite on top of a hill overlooking a destroyed town.
"Stryker did all this?" asked Wolverine, dumbfounded at the damage that had been done.
"Yeah." answered Cable "That tower in the middle of town is where we're headed."
"Who's over there?"
Cable looked at the ground and sighed.
"Magneto."