Max's clawed fingers jittered anxiously as Scott peered through a pair of high powered binoculars. She was trying hard to hold the shift in, but parts of her were slipping from her control. The complex was small. At first glance, the main building looked fairly rundown - like it had fallen into disrepair over many years of neglect. There were a few lights, but they only illuminated the main east entrance and a side entrance on the south wall of the building. "There are four men on the roof with what look like MP 5's, but that's about it. I'm guessing they don't get many visitors out here." He turned back to Max and said, "Jean's going to try to take down as many as she can from here. We want to be as unobtrusive as possible, but if things get out of control I'll start knocking them out. We'll cover you, then move in to follow." he explained and Jean smiled over at him. She had that proud 'that's my man' expression that usually lit up her face when Scott started giving orders. "Let me do a test run first." She murmured, "I don't know how effective my telepathy is going to be from this distance. The professor's much stronger with it than I am." Max watched as one of the sentries on the roof walked the length of his post, then crumpled to the ground. "Good. How long's he going to stay out?" Scott asked. "I inserted the idea in his head that he was exhausted, and that he needed to sleep for about an hour. I've never tried this before, so I don't know if the mental command will last the entire hour, but he's out for the moment." Max watched another one slump and fall to the ground, her muscles beginning to tighten in anticipation. "Now?" she asked, barely holding it together. Two more went down, then Scott nodded. "Go." Max quickly shifted into four legged fur and ran at top speed to the corner of the building, giving the splashes of light a wide, cautious berth. Once there, she took a quick look around, scenting the night air. She smelled guns, sweat and the light hint of fear, but no Logan. She slowly made her way to the side entrance. Now that she was actually taking action, the wolf was starting to calm down a little. She was being a little more co-operative. Max peeked inside, spotting a guard positioned behind a desk. He looked bored; his face illuminated with the dull glow from something he was watching. Showtime. She shifted back, shivering now. It was beyond freezing outside and her hands trembled as she knocked on the glass. The guard looked up, his eyes immediately going wide. She let out a puff of breath, watching as the small cloud of mist drifted slowly away from her on the night breeze. Jesus, it was cold. She had to admit that this possibly wasn't one of her brighter ideas. Would he let her in? The guard bolted out of his chair and walked quickly over to the door, his brow furrowed in consternation. Max pulled her arms tighter around herself, giving him a pleading look. The man picked up his radio and said something into it. Fuck. Why the hell wasn't he opening the goddamned door? She looked up and saw a camera pointed at her. She gave it her best 'damsel in distress' face and the man finally moved to open the door, letting her in and pulling a coat off a nearby rack. He wrapped her up in it, then stepped away from her. He opened his mouth to say something, then his expression went blank. Max frowned at him, cocking her head and waving her hand in front of his face. ~ I've got him, Max. Just go find Logan. And watch out for cameras! ~ Max shook her head, still not liking the feeling of somebody else in her head. Even a friend. She looked around, finding another camera pointing down at the lobby entranceway. Max took a step towards the guard and sniffed him, irritated that everything smelled so sterile. Another guard walked around the corner, saying, "Hey Kessler, shift it. It's your turn to walk the..." Max watched the man's jaw drop as she stepped out from behind the man who'd let her in. She dropped the coat to the floor, and watched his eyes grow wide. She smiled and curled her finger, beckoning him over and the man took several hesitant steps forward before stopping, his expression going slack. ~ That's it for this section. I'm thinking that they're not so much worried about people breaking in, as other things getting out. I'll keep light contact with you so that we can know how you're doing while you're in there. ~ Ok, this is wierd.
Max began walking back towards the hallway, checking the monitor feeds
behind the guard's desk. They displayed other checkpoints in the building,
but nothing else of use. She frowned, then shifted into wolf form and
began padding down the hall, her claws clicking on the cement as she tried
to pick up a scent that she could use to track Logan down. She snuffled underneath the door and the odd scent became a little stronger. She heard footsteps in the hallway behind her and turned to find Scott walking towards her. "I knocked out the two cameras, and Jean got one of the guards to let us in." He turned to look back down the hallway as Jean came around the corner with one of the guards. She walked the man up to the door, watching him key in a code as he turned the doorhandle and opened the door, his eyes empty as he moved to stare straight ahead. Max looked back at her with wary eyes. ~ You know what I am, Blondie. You also know that I'm not comfortable with doing this, but it's for a good cause. ~ Max chuffed at her with a quick nod, then stepped through the door. The scent was definitely stronger here, but still really diminished. She moved through the hallway, not bothering to look up now that Scott and Jean were covering her. She kept her nose to the ground as they made their way down the hall, following it to the left. As she came around the corner, the door at the end of the hallway opened and a man stepped into the corridor. Max stopped in her tracks and the man's eyes grew huge and he moved to close the door, then stopped, standing in place. Max ran up to him, taking in his scent. The scent of Logan was strong on the leather of the man's boots, but the rest of his uniform didn't have any distinct, helpful smells. Jean walked up to the man, frowning. She cocked her head and the man winced, then stepped aside. "This way." She murmured, moving through the doorway. Max darted through the doorway, frustrated that she wasn't picking anything helpful up. Jean seemed to know where to go now, though. A high pitched sound rang off the walls of the corridor and Scott muttered, "Damn. Facility alarm's been triggered. So much for stealth at this point." A bright red beam of energy burst forth from the slot in his visor and knocked the door at the end of the corridor back through the hallway. "Jean - where are we going?" he called over his shoulder as they began running. Jean led the way, her red hair flaring out behind her as they followed her through the halls. "That door." She pointed, and another beam slammed it open. Now she could smell it. Pain and exhaustion licked at the edges of his scent, as well as a strange smell that Max could only assume were the drugs that they had him on as they stepped into a medical procedure room. A large steel table sat in the middle of the room, but everything had been cleaned and meticulously put away. They'd had him in here recently. Max wanted to sprint off in the direction of the scent, but she didn't want to leave her friends behind. At this point, they were in as much danger as she was. She found it odd that she was still rationalizing at this point, now that she had actually verified that he was here. They ran through a number of rooms before starting to hear the voices of people up ahead. Max could smell cordite and gun oil, her nose wrinkling as she kept pace with Jean and Scott. The sounds of premature gunfire further down the hallway as it curved to the right brought them to a full stop. Max's ears were now ringing painfully and she shifted back to pink skin, clapping her hands over them. She had forgotten how loud gunfire could be in an enclosed space. Should've brought earplugs. she thought angrily to herself. Loud noises always irritated her and made her jumpy. She kept her hands over her ears as they advanced towards the sounds. Max could barely hear the clatter of weapons as they hit the floor, but her eardrums were recovering quickly. She could go completely deaf and her hearing would still be restored within minutes. Handy - but still painful as all hell. She looked back at Jean who was now sweating, her expression slightly strained. "How many are there?" Scott asked, frowning back at her. "Not many, but
there's something...one of them has something in his head that he's trying
to keep me from seeing." she growled. They began running, easily hurdling the bodies in the hallway that had slumped where they stood. They were through two more doors when an echoing voice rang through the hallway. "Terminate the subject and evacuate the facility." The cold, clinical tone in the man's voice sent a chill down Max's spine. It sounded almost offhandedly irritated as it floated out of the speaker above her head. A muffled explosion followed by a rapid burst of machine gun fire in another part of the building set all her internal alarms off and the wolf took control, forcing her into dire form as she roared and pounded off in the direction of the noise. "MAX!" Scott yelled, growling, "DAMMIT!" as he and Jean quickly made to follow. Everything shifted into the singular determination of the wolf as Max felt her own consciousness slip away.
Logan looked up to see a naked crimson angel standing before him in the dim lighting of his cell. Her body was dripping with blood, bits of bone and gore - her hair sticking to her skin in dark red trails. He tried to move to get a better look at her, and watched as tears spilled out of her eyes. "Christ." he groaned out of what was left of his ruined vocal cords. "Don't come..here..and start cryin'. Fucksakes." He winced, realizing that he had to be pretty busted up for it to sound that bad. He wanted to get up, but his body wouldn't respond. Whoever she was, his mystery distraction, she was a knockout under all the red stuff. She had visited him before, when he could manage to get somewhat lucid - before they knocked him out again. Usually when she came to him, she looked much cleaner. Pure, almost. Why was she all bloody now? She looked like she had wallowed in a killing field. Something was different this time, though. Now he could actually feel her hands on him as she began sliding them gently along his sides, arms and legs. She seemed to be checking him for something. "How on earth could he have survived that?" The hushed whisper caught his attention and Logan looked to find the source of the other voice, seeing a woman with red hair and black leather that looked vaguely familiar. Seeing her irritated him, but he wasn't entirely sure why. "Max, we need to go. NOW." Logan lolled his head to the side to see a tall man in black leather. What the hell was on the guy's head? Did he realize he looked like an idiot? "Dreaming again.." Logan mumbled, trying to roll over and finding that he couldn't. Everything was wet and red; the floor around him covered with torn pieces of skin. What the hell had happened? There was a strange pressure in his chest, along with a familiar itching feeling. Suddenly, he was hefted into the air by something big, wet and furry. It smelled familiar and comfortable, apart from the fact that it was also covered in blood as well. What, had everybody taken a liberal roll in a blood puddle? It growled softly at him and he relaxed. Hell, if he was dreaming, there wasn't much he could do about it anyway. Having expended the rest of his energy trying to move, he slumped in its arms as he slid back into darkness.
Max cradled Logan in her arms in the back of the cargo area of the plane. Scott had strapped them both into the netting since Max refused to let go of Logan and sit in one of the seats. She didn't want him getting any more banged up on the ride home. She could still hear the low, ripping explosions as they tore through the remains of the facility below. Scott had the plane in the air already and the sounds began fading away. She was still somewhat delirious herself, having come back to awareness once they were able to get into the cage that held him. The wet, ragged mess of his torso was knitting itself back together as he regenerated and she winced as his healing factor forced yet another hunk of metal out of his neck. It hit the floor with a metallic tak sound as she ran shaking fingers over the skin of his shoulder. She watched as tissue started reconstructing over exposed metallic ribs, wondering what the hell they had done to him in order to cause so much damage. She wiped at a bloody spot on his leg, relieved that his skin there was now unbroken - the scars quickly fading. "God, Logan..." she breathed, her voice cracking as tears threatened to start again. Max couldn't even remember what the wolf had done, which was the truly maddening part. When she realized how badly they'd hurt him, she wanted nothing more than to start tearing people apart. Now she couldn't even do that. She remembered seeing vivid splashes of crimson along the walls as well as large chunks of skin and bone strewn liberally throughout the halls as they had run back through the facility, trying to find the exit. The wolf had apparently rent asunder everything in her path once she'd wrested control from Max. It had taken justice into its own hands, leaving her feeling impotent and frustrated. It curled in her psyche now, sated and content that it had saved its mate. It was only a matter of time before Logan´s body burned off whatever zombie cocktail those assholes had forced into him, but it would take a good deal longer for him to heal from the extensive injuries he'd endured. She had never seen anybody come back from anything this extreme before, and it left her more than a little shaken. Max couldn't believe that Logan hadn't broken a single bone. What kind of metal covered them, anyway? His cell had literally been covered in gore, as if something had exploded, splashing it everywhere. She had wanted to ask Jean or Scott what had happened to him before the wolf released its hold on her, but neither of them seemed much in a mood for conversation. Jean had looked as if she were going into mild shock. She'd get the story later, she figured. At least they had gotten him out. She opened her hand and looked down at the souvenir that she'd swiped from the hook that it depended from just outside the cage where they had found him. It was a small metal plate that looked like an unusual military dogtag of sorts. She ran her finger over the single word engraved into the metal again - Wolverine. What the hell was that supposed to mean? She clutched it in her hands, her stomach lurching as the plane jostled gently. Flying in the cargo section was decidedly worse than sitting strapped into one of the seats. Max hoped they would be landing soon.
Pink water swirled around the drain as Max rested her cheek against the cool tile of the shower walls. The water was damn near scalding, but she could barely feel it. Ororo had immediately sent her to clean up after they deposited Logan in the infirmary. There wasn’t much more that Max could do. It was just a matter of waiting now. She finished cleaning up, then headed back downstairs, still feeling numb. Scott was sitting in the living room, staring quietly outside. She padded over and sat across from him. “Can I ask you a question?” He looked over at her, his expression unreadable. His tone was wary as he replied, “Sure. What is it?” Max frowned for a moment, wondering how to phrase it without making it sound too ghoulish. “What..what happened to him? What caused the big hole in his chest?” Scott gave her a strange look, his tone tight as he asked, “You don’t remember?” Max gave him a sad shake of her head, pursing her lips. He took a deep breath, then explained, “I think they put some kind of..explosive charge in him and detonated it before we could get to him in time, hoping that it would kill him.” His tone became hollow as he turned away and murmured, “Then when that didn’t work, they opened fire on him.” Max felt the blood drain from her face as her hands began to shake. “Jesus…” she whispered as she pulled her arms around herself. “Yeah.” Scott croaked, his hands tightening briefly into fists. “I think that’s just about the worst thing I’ve ever seen.” Max took a calming breath, then asked, “How bad did I get?” Scott let out a weak laugh and looked back over at her. “Pretty bad.” She frowned and murmured, “I’m so sorry.” His expression softened as he replied, “We knew it was a nasty situation going in. I just..I had no idea.” He shuddered. “It went the way it went. I’m not blaming you, Max.” “Is Jean okay?” “Oddly enough, she’s not as bad as I thought she’d be. Apparently telepaths see some pretty vivid, nasty stuff in other people’s heads when they're broadcasting their thoughts. The initial shock seems to have worn off quickly, thank god.” “I’m glad.” Max forced a smile, then stood up and said, “I’m going to go check on him. Wanna come?” Scott shook his head slowly and looked back outside. “I think I’ll stay here – but thanks.” Max nodded and made her way through the mansion to the infirmary, relieved that she didn’t run into anybody else along the way. The mansion seemed unusually quiet for some reason. When she walked in and saw Logan limply laid out in a hospital bed, something in her chest tightened. His body had fully regenerated, but he was breathing slowly. Max sat by his bedside, watching for any signs of voluntary movement. He was still out like a light, and likely would be for a while. She felt a gentle hand on her shoulder and quickly turned around to find Ororo standing there, her expression stoic. "Have you eaten?" she asked, her tone soft. Max shook her head as her stomach gave a loud growl. "Not yet." "Would you like me to bring you something?" "No. I'll be okay." Max murmured, turning to look back over at Logan. "Little good will come of you denying yourself sustenance, Max." Ororo chided softly, letting her hand drop from Max's shoulder. "I can't leave him." Max whispered, feeling strangely guilty. "I will bring you something from the kitchen. A sandwich?" Ororo offered. Max turned and met the woman's ice blue eyes, her expression tightening. "Have you ever..had vengeance taken out of your hands?" Ororo smiled and pulled up a lab stool, perching on it with a regal mien. "All of us, at one time or another, lose the opportunity to see the wickedness that affects us directly punished before our eyes." She paused for a moment, then gave a somber nod. "Oh yes." Max let out a deep sigh and replied, "I want so badly to hurt - to kill those who did this to him - who put him through this - and I can't because, in a remote way, I already did." "Jean spoke of the aftermath - the carnage you left in your wake on your way to reach him. It sounds as if you firmly collected the debt yourself." She looked slightly confused. "Was this not the case?" Max shifted on her stool and murmured, "Well - yes and no." She looked away, not wanting her friend to see her shame so plainly on her face. "At a certain point, I essentially lost consciousness - and the wolf took over. All the rage - the anguish and pain I felt at what was happening - she's the one who brought the price raining down on their heads. Not me." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I don't even remember it." "Then you must accept that Karma herself was riding beside you tonight and place the need for vengeance behind you." Ororo shivered for a moment as Max looked back at her. "It is not always a good thing to be her direct instrument, Max. Trust me on this." She sounded like she spoke from a place of pretty harsh experience. Max wondered what she had gone through to sound so jaded about such a thing. She still looked so young. It was hard to remember that she was twenty. "You're always so calm - so measured in your responses. How do you do it? How do you keep it all from getting to you and tearing you apart?" Max asked, her hazel eyes searching. Ororo smiled and quietly explained, "I command the very elements of the sky with thought and intention. I had to enforce rigid control over my emotions at a very young age to keep from destroying everything around me." "Did it get easier over time?" Ororo chuckled softly, shaking her head. "Sometimes it is very difficult indeed. I cannot always keep how I feel penned in, but I do the best that I am able." Max had a stray thought, and her eyes widened. "What about during...?" she let the rest of the question go unasked and Ororo presented her with a wry smile. "It is the one question that everyone seems to ask me." She slowly stood up and said, "Have you not noticed that, every once in a while, a brief thunderstorm will break out around the mansion?" She raised an eyebrow and her smile grew bigger as she turned to go. "A sandwich it is." She murmured as she walked out. Max blinked, then let out a bark of laughter. She felt the tight spot in her chest loosen a little and relaxed. Go back to Chapter 11 - Go to Chapter 13 To reiterate: MARVEL owns the rights to most of the elements in this story. Max, and her subsequent backstory, is my own creation, but everything else is either sub-canon, or warped canon yanked from the X-Men storyline. |