Out of the corner of his eye, Logan saw a small but inexplicable pair of lights swelling to life in the darkness of the trees, but before anything could happen (someone powering up?), a missile shot from the visible helicopter, as a passenger shot a surface to surface rocket from the hold.

There were shouts from the ground to move as it screamed in and hit something, possibly a concealed transport, causing a small but impressive explosion that made the troops scramble, both for a better position and a better shot.

But as soon as the missile had impacted, the chopper opened up with its rail guns.

Logan couldn't help but laugh as the heavy duty slugs tore through the trees and chewed up the ground in huge clumps. He should have known from his experience in Hong Kong that the Triad had access to a lot of military hardware that frankly it shouldn't have. He thought that was for China/Hong Kong alone, but he should have known better. You didn't get to be a world reviled mafia by sticking to the rule book.

Rogue was looking up at the chopper and the slaughter going on behind her in the woods with obvious horror, as surprised as everyone else. Did they think because she knew him, because he was imprinted in her psyche like a hangover you couldn't forget, that she knew all his tactics, knew everything he would do? No offense to Rogue, but she might have been him, for all intents and purposes, but she still didn't know him, not like she should. Nobody knew him like that, except maybe Bob; he didn't want anyone to know him like that. He didn't even want to know that side of himself, the thing he kept hidden because he couldn't trust himself to let it go. He couldn't scare away the closest things he had to friends by showing them how stygian his "dark side" actually was.

But the Organization? Yeah, they should have known better. If they wanted to sink into the gutter, he could do so too, and they should have known that. They wanted to fuck around with him? They should have known he would cut a deal with any devil to make them choke on their own blood.

Yeah, playing with Xavier's crew, he tried to be good. But Xavier wasn't here, they made sure of that. Mistake number one.

Lights shot out from the forest, aiming for the helicopter, but it swayed in the air and missed, suggesting the pilot on the stick had extremely good reflexes - mutant, or just really high on some form of speed? Either way, the mutant who fired the blasts - and he was sure that's what it was; he was pretty sure it was that guy who shot concussive blasts that he first encountered in Montana - was sent scrambling for new cover, as the blasts had revealed his location, and the rail guns turned his way. Figures rappelled from the open hold of the 'copter, clad in ninja black and seemingly unarmed ... seemingly. Logan wouldn't bet on it.

"Holy fucking hell!" Piotr cursed over the rattle of guns and pops of explosions, but at least he did it in Russian. Logan caught reflected light in the corner of his eye, and figured he'd gone metal. He reverted to English to ask, "Who the hell are these people? Do you know the Canadian army?!"

"These are bad men," he told him honestly. "The worst of the worst. I figured they'd have a lot in common with the Organization."

Although he was cringing from the shots (none of which had come over here yet; the troops were busy with the chopper, and the guys on the chopper were tightly focused on their quarry), Bobby had completed the path of ice across the water, which gleamed whitely in the dim light. (Thanks to the fires across the lake, the light was growing all the time.) It was maybe six feet wide, so it wasn't too narrow, and was solidly anchored on the far bank; he could see a thick shelf of ice on the dirt, melding into it like a metal clip. He patted Bobby on the shoulder, which made him jolt. "Good job, kid," he said, then looked back at the startled faces of everyone else. "Everybody stay behind me; there could be ricochets. And one of the mutants they brought with 'em shoots concussive blasts; avoid him if you can. Now, remember your jobs. Avoid Rogue and Saddiq, and get the equipment. Let's go."

He started across the ice bridge at a run, the surface very slick but not so slick that he couldn't handle it, and he was half way across when he noticed that someone else had seen it too.

There was a woman standing on the opposite shore, tall and dark skinned, her black hair cut so close to her scalp you could call it a buzz cut. She seemed to radiate disdain, although she was smiling in a sickly, angry way.

He'd seen her before, hadn't he? Where had he seen her before?

He remembered - she was the woman who picked up a car like it was a Dixie cup - just as she brought her foot down on the end of the path. The ice cracked and the whole path shook, but it held - well, for the moment. She hadn't expected it to be as thick as it was. But Logan had to stop to keep from losing his balance.

"Kitty, to me!" He shouted.

She was a good kid. He could smell the fear coming off her like sour milk, but she appeared right behind him. "Yeah?"

He grabbed her hand, and said, "Phase, and run."

Although her look was briefly startled, understanding seemed to bloom in her dark eyes, and she nodded as Logan started running again, this time with Kitty in tow, holding on to his hand. "Take a breath," she warned.

"Just what do you hope to accomplish, Wolverine," the woman said. He didn't know her name, but mentally he dubbed her "Hulkess", since clearly strength was her power. "You know I can kick your ass."

Distracted with their charge, she didn't bother to hit the path again, just curled her hands into fist and stepped out to meet them. She swung up in an uppercut that would have taken his head clear off his neck ... if he had been solid.

Kitty had waited until the last handful of seconds, and he barely knew when she had phased them both. He just felt an odd sort of numbness come over him, the coldness radiating from the ice suddenly still, and then there was the odd sensation of Hulkess's fist passing clear through him, like he was just a cloud.

She had expected contact, so when she didn't make it she over balanced, and barely corrected in time to avoid falling in the lake as he and Kitty ran straight through her, like she was just a mirage.

It was almost a feeling, and it was almost odd, but not nearly as odd as it was for Hulkess, who sucked in a breath as if punched. It was probably just from the fact that she was braced for collision, although Logan knew from experience that having Kitty pass through you was deeply disconcerting, like a temperate breeze passing through your internal organs. It wasn’t nearly as pleasant as it sounded.

As soon as they were through and past her, Kitty phased them back in, which he could tell simply by feeling the cold air swarm around them. The Hulkess spun to glare at them, and before he could taunt her for not paying attention at the briefing (surely there must have been one), she froze - literally.

Ice crystals glittered on her dark skin like a diamond sheen, and she was stuck in her belligerent posture, stuck in a hostile moment. Brendan shoved past her, knocking her into the lake, where she bobbed on the surface like an a piece of jetsam. Brendan looked down at her with obvious disdain. “What was her deal?”

Logan could only shrug. “Anger issues.”

The second helicopter swooped in low over the lake, and dropped something large and heavy out of the hold; they could all hear it thud on the ground somewhere slightly Northeast of their general position. As Bobby and Piotr came over the bridge, Piotr asked, “What’s that?”

“End game.” Yes, it was cryptic, but it had to be. He didn’t want the bad guys to try and find a way to use it on them, or otherwise just fuck it up.

Kitty was bent over, hands on her knees, panting for breath. “You run too damn fast.”

And here he thought he was going too slow just so Kitty could keep up. Maybe she wasn’t used to running on ice.

The gunfire continued in the woods, as the troops who had rappelled from the chopper were armed as well, and the stink of cordite and burning metal and wood was making his ability to smell anything quickly a moot point. His eyes were watering already from the acrid stench, which felt like knitting needles being jabbed into his sinuses with each breath. The fire in the middle of the woods looked like it was getting worse too, the smoke pouring up into the sky and obscuring the moon. Soon it would be too dangerous for any of them to be here, but they still had some time.

He looked around for Rogue, but she was gone … for now. He didn’t expect it to last for long. Flames made the shadows seem to dance, move like Humans, and it fooled him often enough that he almost missed genuine movement as Saddiq emerged from the trees. This was just what he was afraid of, that they’d be so convinced of Saddiq’s innate deadliness they’d send him out to confront them, and that they’d be so afraid of hurting him they wouldn’t fight him.

He stood there glaring at them all, no recognition or truly conscious thought evident on his stony face, as his hands curled into fists at his side, and he seemed to focus his gaze square on him. “I always wanted to fight you, old man,” he said, his voice inflectionless, and yet somehow still edged with the slightest bit of contempt. “I always wanted to show you the flaws in your technique.”

Oh, that was cute. He knew Saddiq was technically a better fighter than him, but he was insane, so he felt that gave him a natural edge. Still, Saddiq would be prepared for absolutely any reaction, so he’d have to do something he wouldn’t expect. And what would that be?

Avoid a fight? Run away? Yeah, that sounded good; pretty improbable. He’d never see it coming.

But before he could play the coward card, Bobby reacted, holding out his hand to freeze Saddiq where he was; you could see the ice crystals in the air, forming between them like a bridge. And a blast of light came out of the woods, shattering the beam of ice and making Bobby duck and cover as shards of ice like glass slivers rebounded on him.

Shit - concussive blast guy.

He shot another blast at Bobby, but Brendan tackled him and got him clear, so the blast hit the dirt and threw up a huge cloud of dust. He changed focus, and Logan saw the shot headed for him before Piotr stepped in the way. The blast hit him hard, enough that he seemed to lose all his breath in a grunt, and he was moved back an inch or two, but otherwise didn’t budge.

“Oh, you think you can take it?” Blaster guys said tauntingly. His hair was blond, looking molten in the reflection of distant flames, his eyes glistening like rain slicked glass.  Something about his face was frustratingly familiar, and that was beyond their subsequent encounters in Montana and New York.  He had once seen that man before …but the how and why of the before eluded him.  There was no doubt he was Organization, and a bad memory. “Let’s see about that.”

This guy, whoever he was, had managed to go toe-to-toe with Cyclops’ power for a while, before he started to fade (Scott would naturally win that fight; he didn’t generate his power, where Blondie clearly did. He couldn’t generate forever, while all Scott had to do was not blink).  He could, at full strength, send Piotr sailing straight into the lake.  It probably wouldn’t hurt him - he was still metal - but there was an implacable law of physics; a good sized explosion could level a bunker, and certainly dislodge a boulder, no matter how much it weighed.

Logan waited until the glow in the palm of his hands was almost unbearably bright, which seemed to reach its peak just before he fired. He grabbed Piotr’s arm and used a leg sweep to take him down to the ground as the energy passed just over them, leaving a hot wind in its wake, the light as blinding as the sun.

“Shit,” Piotr breathed, forgetting to use Russian.

“He’s mine!” Saddiq snapped angrily, and once Logan blinked away the afterimages left by the barely missed blast, he looked up to see if Saddiq would attack Blondie. That would be a solution to their problem - well, one of them.

But everyone had forgotten about Kitty. Blondie - who had clearly paid attention at the briefing - ignored her, which turned out to be the biggest mistake of his life. She ran past him, phased out, and he let her go without a second glance, but she did a u-turn once she was passed him, briefly disappearing in the woods.

When she re-emerged, it was simply as a pair of ghostly arms reaching through the thick trunk of the Lodgepole pine behind him, and her hands must have been temporarily solid, because she grabbed one of Blondie’s arms. “Hey,” he exclaimed, startled, but was unable to pull away before Kitty had pulled his arm through the tree - and let him go.

He tried yanking his arm out, but his left arm was now buried up to the shoulder in the trunk of the tree. His hand was sticking out the other side, but it was quite effectively useless, as he could only fire in two directions, and one of those was straight at the ground.  “What the fuck..?!” He shouted, annoyance turning quickly to alarm as he kept trying - and failing - to pull his arm out.

Kitty just looked at Saddiq.  It wasn’t even angry, just resigned. “I don’t want to hurt you, Sid,” she said. “But I will if I have to.”

Saddiq looked mildly alarmed, and justifiably so. He couldn’t hurt her while she was phased; but if she chose to phase out a certain part of herself, she could obviously do something to him. Stick him in a tree, perhaps, bury him into the ground up to his waist, wedge him inside a rock.

He chose the better part of valor, retreating quickly until he could regroup and come up with a strategy to deal with her, and Brendan laughed. “All right!” He exclaimed. “Kitty, you kick ass!”

She looked down at the ground and colored slightly, proud but a little embarrassed, and Logan couldn’t help but smile. He knew she had potential - and she was definitely a girl he could train.  She had a level head and great instincts.

“Phase!” He shouted at her, as he saw Blondie raise his right hand, the one he could still use, although in a greatly limited fashion. She must have heard him, as the blast he fired passed harmlessly through her and kicked up another clod of dirt.

“Damn it, you little bitch!” He snarled angrily. “What the fuck have you done to me?!” He then put his right hand on the trunk, beneath where his arm was held captive, and fired.

Even before he did it, Logan knew it was a colossal mistake. Blondie, whoever he was, was clearly as smart as a sock full of nickels.

The blast shot a huge hole through the trunk; so large, in fact, he had effectively cut the tree down. He only realized what he had actually done when the sixty foot tree started to topple, and pull him and his trapped arm with it. “Fuck fuck fuck !” He screamed, as the tree fell over, deeper into the woods, and dragged him down to the ground. See, if he was going to free himself, he should have shot a hole through the top of the tree first, but that would have required some knowledge on how gravity works, and he was going to go out on a limb (no pun intended) and guess that that just wasn’t Blondie’s forte.

Piotr helped him up to his feet, grimacing in such a way that it was clear he was trying very hard not to laugh. “Please tell me he’s the brains of the operation.”

“Naw, I don’t think so. But wouldn’t it be great if he was?”

Kitty pointed off into the woods behind her, and said, “He went that way. Should I follow?”

“No. Let’s all head out, see if we can find their base camp. Well, what’s left of it.”

He let Brendan and Kitty lead the way, but he nudged Piotr and jerked his head over at their fallen friend in the tree, and he understood and nodded. So they lingered behind, waiting until the kids were a couple of meters ahead before closing in on Blondie.

He had been too busy trying to squirm away from the tree and get a better angle in which to shoot it to notice them until it was too late. He looked up once their shadows fell over them, but Piotr was quick to step on his free right hand, grinding the palm down into the dirt. He squeaked in pain, and Logan crouched down so Blondie could get a good look at him, and his cocked fist. “Okay, you know the drill. Tell us who all is here, and where your base camp is, and you live to be made a fool of another day.”

In spite of the pain, Blondie sneered up at them. “Fuck you, Wolverine. What are you gonna do - cut me?”

Despite the acrid smoke, Logan knew he was bluffing; he could pick up the sour undertone of fear this close to him. But he decided to really ratchet up the fear, just because he struck him as not only an idiot, but a savage idiot, the very worst kind. He moved his fist down to right in front of his crotch, and said, “Which are you more attached to, your right or left ball?”

His eyes bugged out, almost all white. “Y-you wouldn’t dare! You’re bluffing.”

“Let’s find out. Piotr, your choice.”

“Right,” he responded quickly, keeping his voice flat.  He was good at this.

“Okay, right it is.”

“Wait!” Blondie shouted, nearly convulsing with fear.  He quickly told them all they had asked for, adding a few details they hadn’t requested, but were still good to know anyway.

Even though he did talk, for a moment Logan considered castration for the good of the Human race - did they need more idiots like him around? There were already too many as it was - but Piotr was here, and besides, doing that to any guy, even a dumbass like him, seemed a little extreme.  So once Blondie told them all they needed to know, he punched him in the face instead; not hard enough to fracture his skull, but hard enough to break his nose and render him unconscious.

He told Piotr to take the lead, as he was more bulletproof than Brendan, and Logan took up the rear, keeping his eyes open and his senses as attuned as they could be the closer they got to the painfully acrid scents. Now that they knew Kitty had offensive capabilities, and that the team had good skills in spite of being mostly rookies, they would work to single them out, split them off and pick them off one by one. Or at least that’s what he’d do if he was in their shoes. So he was getting ready to take out the first potential threat; he thought he knew who they would send out.

He was wrong, or maybe they’d just encountered them fleeing from the Triad, but either way a brace of startled troops crashed through the woods and almost stumbled right into them.  They all paused, startled to come face to face with one another, and before the seven soldiers could aim their weapons, Logan launched himself into them with an angry roar.

As he expected, they ignored the others and focused on him, converging on him like a rugby scrum.  It didn’t matter.

He made short work of them all, breaking crucial bones with full force kicks to the pressure points on the legs, breaking noses and jaws with fists and well placed elbows to the face, dropping them to the ground gagging with sharp shots to the throats.  When he popped his claws, it was to shred their weapons and their body armor, and to tear their skin shallowly but painfully, to make them bleed enough to scare them. Something in him wanted a good, dirty fight, something to burn off all  this adrenaline, but before he knew it it was over; he was standing panting over the group of fallen men, some of whom were squirming and groaning in pain, and others who were still, as the unconscious never complained.  (That was the good thing about them.)

He found the kids all staring at him, mostly in mute horror, tense as if they were afraid he’d turn on them next.  Finally, Brendan said, “That never fails to be really frightening.”

Logan could only shrug, and he retracted his bloody claws.  As much as he liked to pretend he was something more, he was as much a constructed weapon as Saddiq was, and it was just a damn shame that the Organization thought a mental breakdown or two meant he still couldn’t perform up to specs.  In some respects, it had just made him more dangerous than before.

Piotr continued to lead them deeper into the woods, headed for base camp (was it still there?  Even Blondie wasn’t sure if the Triad had hit it or not), as the gunfire became more sporadic and farther away. Probably most of the troops had been thinned out, and somehow he doubted that they had won out over the enemy they hadn’t expected.  The  fire was getting larger, though, fiercer, and the continued crackling of the flames was now beginning to sound like an approving audience.  Soon they’d all be forced to flee, winners and losers alike, although he wasn’t sure there could be any clear winner here.

In spite of the choking smoke that was starting to make them all cough, Logan caught the slightest trace of perfume on a cross breeze. He quickly moved up the line and grabbed Bobby’s arm, briefly pulling him aside. He whispered to him, pitching his voice just low enough that no one else could hear, “Could you freeze me to someone else?”

Bobby glanced at him, his blue eyes wide in surprise. “What?”

“Can you? I don’t mean freeze me solid or anything, just make it so someone can’t pull away from me. Can you do it?”

“Uh, yeah, sure. But I don’t understand -”

“In a minute, I’m gonna charge someone. I need you to freeze me to them the instant I reach them so they can’t pull away. Okay?”

He blinked rapidly, trying to assimilate it all, and figure out what he was going to do.  Logan bet he wouldn’t, not until it was too late. “Uh, yeah, okay.  But who -”

“Just do it, no matter who it is. Rogue’s and Saddiq’s lives may depend on this working. Got it?”

Now he looked really curious, but he wasn’t sure how to ask in a way that would guarantee anything but an evasive response. He nodded, and started to ask, one more time, “But what -”