Bell-Bottom Wearing Disclaimer: This story features the X-Men and the Thunderbolts... or... does it? (BUM BUM BUMMMMM!) Anyway, these characters are trademarks of Marvel Comics and are being used without permission--or...are they? (OK, I'll stop now.) This is an unauthorized work and no profit is being made on this work. This work is copyright of me. Download this story if you like, but please don't archive it without my permission. Don't be shy.Big, Round Number Obsessed Continuity Note: This is a time travel story, so the "past" portion characters refer to is the sequence of events depicted in X-MEN v.1 #100. The "present" part takes place between THUNDERBOLTS #33 and #34.
His world was dark and warm, and he could hear a faint voice calling him. He strained to hear it, but it repeated itself, growing louder. "Awake, my X-Men!" Logan stirred and his eyes fluttered open. Instinctively, he sniffed at the air, and knit his brow when he noticed something suspicious. He cleared his throat and gave that suspicion voice. "Where the flamin' heck...?" Fortunately for him, he picked up the scents of his teammates, the X-Men. All of them were accounted for. He craned his head to the left and saw three of them in bunks beside him. Ororo, codenamed Storm, the exotic African beauty who commanded the weather. Sean Cassidy, called Banshee, a nod to his Irish heritage and his ability to channel his voice into destructive beams of sonic force as well as flight. Kurt Wagner, the "Elf" as Logan called him, for his light-hearted charm and inhuman features, but in reality his teleportation powers and acrobatic training made him a force to be reckoned with as Nightcrawler. To his right he found Peter Rasputin, who filled the cliched role of the inexperienced farmboy, but with his body covered head to toe in nearly unbreakable organic steel, Colossus was more than tough enough to make up for the inexperience. Last, but hardly least, Scott Summers and Jean Grey, two holdovers from the original class of X-Men, and between the optic force beams of Cyclops and the mental abilities of Marvel Girl, they might have been the most powerful of the X-Men as well. It was a comforting realization, but it still didn't explain how they got here, wherever here was. Fortunately, the voice was ready to answer his questions before he could ask them. "I believe you are all wondering what has just happened," the voice said, this time ringing in Logan's ears instead of his mind. The source was revealed as an automatic door whooshed open to allow an unassuming man in a wheelchair to enter. He needed no introduction, just as Logan didn't need to smell the newcomer to know he was none other than Professor Charles Xavier, founder and mentor of the X-Men. Armed with his telepathic might and keen intellect, he was perhaps the most brilliant mutant mind on Earth. Small surprise he should be the one giving the answers. "Professor?" Cyclops asked wearily. "But how? Last thing I remember you were unconscious when we freed you from Steven Lang's Nega-Tube. Lang crashed his flying gunship into that giant viewscreen of his--there was an explosion. How did we get off the Sentinels' orbital platform?" "And where's Dr. Corbeau?" Jean added. "He was with you when it happened." "All I know is that we were puttin' the finishing touches on those robot impostors," Logan piped in, "and we went lookin' for you when that explosion nearly finished us off, too." He looked at Nightcrawler. "We got you to thank for pullin' our fat out of the fire, Elf?" Nightcrawler shook his head, "Nein, my friend. Even if I could have teleported all of us across such a great distance, remember that I must know the exact location of my arrival point when I teleport." He waved a three fingered hand around the room. "I have no idea where this is." Logan knew all that of course, but it was the only explanation he could think of. Nightcrawler's power was the only one he knew of capable of transporting barely one other person along with him, and even that much exertion made him physically ill. But if he didn't do this--? "Enough," Xavier snapped. "I will explain everything to you in due time, my X-Men. First, however, I must probe your minds to make certain that your memories are in tact. Please lower your mental defenses." Logan relaxed and felt a faint scratching on his consciousness. It was disquieting--being as private a man as he was--but he knew Xavier would only perform a cursory scan of his recent memory, and whatever got to the bottom of this mystery was fine with him. He began to see not only his own memories, but images from others' points of view as well. Xavier was like a film editor, splicing pieces of memories together to create a single, complete depiction of what had happened. If that weren't enough, Xavier provided the narration, too. "It began earlier that week, when a new breed of Sentinel robots attacked, capturing Banshee, Jean, and Wolverine in New York, and myself while fishing in the Bahamas with Peter Corbeau. The remaining X-Men began a search for the Sentinels' base, using the Cerebro computer to track the presence of our unique mutant energies, but to no avail. Meanwhile, Peter Corbeau was left stranded alone in the Caribbean Sea, his yacht sunk in the Sentinel attack. Heroically, he swum back to land, and came to the Mansion to help the X-Men in their search. "It was Corbeau, being the director of the UN Starcore Project, who correctly deduced that if Cerebro could not locate us anywhere on Earth, that indeed we weren't on Earth at all, but in space. At last, you found us on an orbital platform which had been abandoned by S.H.I.E.L.D., and with Corbeau's help, the X-Men were infiltrated onto the next launch of the Starcore shuttle. After colliding the shuttle with the space station, you battled the Sentinels, freeing Wolverine and Banshee, while Cyclops and Corbeau found myself and Jean, under the guard of one Steven Lang. "It was Lang who had created the new Sentinels as part of his Project: Armageddon, intended to exterminate mutantkind. He captured Cyclops and Corbeau, and then revealed his master strategy to the remaining five X-Men: the X-Sentinels. "The freshman X-Men were shocked to find Cyclops, Marvel Girl, and I had seemingly betrayed them, and had somehow recruited five former X-Men--Beast, Iceman, Angel, Lorna Dane, and Havok--to attack them with deadly force. They battled on, hoping to defend themselves long enough to appeal to their sense of reason, until Wolverine confronted 'Xavier' and was shocked to see him stand up to strike him." Logan shuddered at that thought. He wasn't the type to be taken off-guard that easily, but that was exactly what had happened. He had felt furious that Xavier had betrayed him and the others for seemingly insane reasons, and to see the crippled man stand and deliver a haymaker that powerful was just about enough to send him over the edge. "Form there," Xavier continued, "Marvel Girl attacked him mentally, and this provoked Wolverine enough to lash out at his opponent, realizing that it couldn't be the real Jean trying to kill him. He... eviscerated her, only to reveal nothing but robotics and circuitry inside." Again a twitch of discomfort. Logan had known exactly what he was doing at that moment, but the look of shock on the faces of his teammates was still genuine. They had thought he killed one of their own in cold blood, and even after it had sunk in that she was simply a mechanical impostor, they still couldn't shake the image. It would be a long time before they ever looked at him the same way again, Logan thought. Then again, why should they be any different from anyone else he'd ever known? "Meanwhile, Steven Lang was furious that the X-Men had uncovered his deception, and explained to the real Cyclops and Marvel Girl that he had created these 'X-Sentinels' to be the ultimate method of wiping out mutants, using the powers of their strongest defenders against them. Pushed to the breaking point, Cyclops focused his optic beams at the Nega-Tube which confined him, and shattered it. He freed the others, and pursued Lang with a nearly murderous rage." Logan watched the X-Men's leader chase after Lang, lashing out with his crimson energy beams. Apparently, the Teacher's Pet wasn't quite as cool and collected as he often presented himself. Of course, after everything Lang had put them all through, it was doubtful any of the X-Men would have reacted differently in his place. Indeed, once the robots were unmasked, Wolverine wasn't the only one taking out his frustrations against the impostors. "Lang panicked, and took flight in his gunship, firing wildly at us. Corbeau carried my unconscious body, and once I was safe, Marvel Girl joined the fray, telekinetically manipulating Lang's controls (An excellent tactic, Jean, by the way. I commend you.). However, Lang attempted to resist, and in doing so jammed the controls, sending him careening into his own equipment. The other X-Men arrived just in time to be caught in the full brunt of that explosion, and all of you fell into unconsciousness." Logan snapped out of Xavier's trance and shook his head. "So now that we're all on the same page, how did we get here?" he asked. "Listen carefully, X-Men, as this part of the story becomes more complicated. You see, after the explosion, you were all fully conscious and continued to regroup, returning to the Starcore shuttle and escaping the platform before it exploded. Although damaged, Jean successfully piloted it back to earth, and we resumed our lives, for better or worse..." "What? I piloted the shuttle?" Jean asked in shock. "Then why don't I remember anything after the explosion?" "Because," Xavier said cautiously, "for the seven of you, none of that has yet to occur. For you see, the seven of you have been returned to Earth, not only transported through space, but through time as well." Logan rubbed his eyes. Some days it just didn't pay to get out of bed. *** "Time?!" Storm asked in shock. "How can such a thing have happened?" "During my confinement on Lang's headquarters, I was outfitted with a helmet designed to restrain my mental powers," Xavier explained. "When Cyclops freed me, Corbeau removed the helmet. Although I was still unconscious, my mind was able to act. This allowed me to probe Lang's thoughts. "What I discovered was that he had intentionally set off that explosion, X-Men. It was no accident, but rather a fail-safe. Lang knew that when you had exposed his X-Sentinels as impostors, their effectiveness would be compromised, and by extension, his entire Armageddon Project. His words had implied that those robots were his last line of defense, but this was not so. Lang knew that the quickest way to handle the X-Men would be to remove you from existence completely, so he set up a temporal distortion field around the orbital platform. In the event that it were destroyed, the effect would transport everyone aboard into the future. Presumably, he believed that he could build up enough power to deal with you by the time you rematerialized. In any event, by crashing his gunship, Lang set off the field in a confined area of the satellite, thus affecting only you seven. Although, if we had not successfully flown clear of the platform when it was destroyed, I imagine we all would have been caught in the distortion." "But Professor," Colossus asked humbly, "you said we escaped the platform with you. If we are here, how could we have been in the past as well?" "My unconscious mind asked the same question, Peter," Xavier explained. "For once Lang had escaped the blast unseen, I sensed your minds still in place. A cursory scan revealed that your memories had been recently altered--by me. After we had escaped and I had time to examine the puzzle more closely, I found a message from myself--The Charles Xavier of the near future--hidden in your minds for me to find. The message detailed the exact time and place you would appear in the future, and that I would eventually succeed in reversing Lang's efforts and return you all to your own time, as if nothing had happened. So to answer your question, you will eventually be returned to the past to live out your lives as normal, Peter, and you must have no memory of what transpires here and now." "Da, somehow I do not think I would want to remember any of this," Colossus muttered. "So you just waited until the right moment, and found us--here?" Banshee asked. "Specifically, in an underground backup facility of Lang's," Xavier said. "His intention was that when you did finally reappear, it would be in a place where he could attack you once again with his Sentinels. However, knowing this ahead of time, I simply launched a pre-emptive strike against that base--along with your future selves--and made certain the place would be abandoned when you materialized. This bunker is simply one of my safehouses I arranged to take you to until you could recover from the experience." "Great," Logan said impatiently. "So you've covered all the angles, Prof. So how do we get back to our own time?" "To that, I have no answer," Xavier said solemnly. "All I can say is that it _must_ happen, since this timeline has already established that you have returned to the past. In fact, your present day incarnations are up and about in this time as we speak. Whatever happens to bring you back _will_ happen, or this present could not exist. It remains for us to simply wait for destiny to play itself out. In the meantime, I have urgent matters to discuss with you, my X-Men." "Figures," Logan snorted. After all, if destiny would have played itself out, as Xavier had suggested, why had he bothered to tell his past self to worry about any of it in the first place? At least, he was fairly certain that made sense. He prided himself on being the best there was at what he did, but time travel wasn't that. Not by a long shot. "Indeed it does, Wolverine," Xavier affirmed. "For while Lang's gambit failed to eliminate his enemies, he still pursues his anti-mutant strategies regardless. And it falls to us to once again oppose his efforts." "I don't understand, Professor," Banshee asked, "You said the X-Men still exist in this time. Why not just send them on whatever mission you're talkin' about?" "Because, Sean, the X-Men do _not_ exist in this time. As it turns out, Lang's intentions have been fulfilled by simple coincidence. Since his original attack on us, Lang has kept a low profile, and I have neglected to keep an eye on his activities. Meanwhile, the X-Men of this era have been busy with other affairs, searching for me after a lengthy disappearance, then yet another ill-fated journey into space, and now I have learned that the team has been infiltrated by an impostor. Suspecting the worst, I disbanded the X-Men until I could determine the best way to ferret out the traitor. So you see, not only has Lang had time to implement a new plot to destroy us, but I cannot reassemble the team without alerting the enemy within to my suspicions. I need a team of X-Men I can trust implicitly, and the seven of you are exactly that." "And just what is this plot of his we're supposed to stop?" Nightcrawler asked. "Allow me to demonstrate," Xavier said. He wheeled his chair to a television set and pushed a video tape into the player beneath it. "I have been compiling news footage related to Lang's efforts. Please pay attention, all of you." Logan watched dubiously as the screen came to life. He wasn't fully convinced of all of this, and what he saw on the screen didn't assuage his doubts either. The first few minutes displayed a montage of Sentinel attacks, an army of them leveling Manhattan Island. Journalists described the carnage as the machinations of an archfiend named Onslaught, who had created an army of the leviathan machines and reprogrammed them to attack any human, mutant or otherwise. The next scene was a veritable army of superheroes battling Onslaught in the ruined Manhattan, until the war ended with the X-Men (several of whom Logan recognized, including himself), destroying an energy being as the other heroes leaped into it. The media had predictably dubbed this as the murder of the heroes at the hands of mutant terrorists. Moving on, a third bit of footage was an establishing shot of the U.S. Capitol Building, the trademark image of C-SPAN, accompanying a transcript of Congressional business. The order of the day: anti-mutant legislation, specifically the implementation of something called Operation: Zero Tolerance. Again, Logan was sickened by the news, but hardly surprised. He'd been a mutant too long to expect things to turn around overnight. His kind, humans born with special powers and abilities, had been hated and feared from the beginning. The others were considerably more disheartened, however. "By the goddess," Storm whispered. If the others had similar exclamations to make he didn't hear anything louder than mumbles of shock and fear. "Now, I should qualify all this by explaining that Zero Tolerance was discontinued almost as quickly as it began, but it's effects are still felt today. The critical point is here," Xavier said, pointing to the TV as the fourth segment came on. "New York has suffered a great loss in the wake of the Onslaught disaster, but at last there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel," declared a hopeful news anchor. "Six new heroes have arrived to fill the void left by the deaths of the core Avengers and the Fantastic Four--the Thunderbolts!" Sure enough, six new costumed men and women dominated the footage with feats of super-power and inspirational speeches. Suddenly, a fifth segment aired in which the same anchor sullenly informed his audience that the Thunderbolts were now wanted by S.H.I.E.L.D. and other law-enforcement agencies for crimes they committed as the Master of Evil." "These characters were super-villains in disguise?" Banshee asked. Logan knew Sean had once been a policeman in New York, so apparently the idea of an undercover operation in reverse had intrigued him. "Their plan had been to deceive the public until they could find an opportunity to betray that trust and use it to take control of the world," Xavier elucidated. "When the Avengers and Fantastic Four were discovered alive, it forced them to play their hand, and the entire scheme feel apart. But the story doesn't end there." Segment six: "This is Gayle Rogers with another Thunderwatch report. It seems that after a rash of successes, both on the crimefighting and public relations fronts, the Thunderbolts seem to have scaled back their efforts for the moment. Of course the big coup that still has the country talking is the fulfillment of new leader Hawkeye's promise to bring in the latest lineup of the Masters of Evil... even after their roster was revealed to be three and a half times larger than originally indicated. From there the Thunderbolts disappeared for a short while, then returned to tackle Graviton and his floating Sky Island over San Francisco, and the team has recently been rumored to have played a part in the dismantling of a Secret Empire outpost in the Rocky Mountains..." "I thought you said these guys were criminals, Professor," Cyclops said. "The X-Men have met Hawkeye, and he seemed to be on the level then--" Xavier shushed him midsentence and let the video continue. "--question is are the Thunderbolts taking a much needed breather, or are they planning something less than innocent?" He shut off the VCR. "Someone wanna explain what all that was supposed to do with Lang?" Logan asked sarcastically. "It's very simple, Wolverine," Xavier said. "Although regrettably I must assume responsibility for the actions of Onslaught--I... would rather not go into detail--the fact is that those Sentinels he used were already built when he used them. I propose that Lang oversaw their production. "Further, I believe that when Lang saw the Sentinels used by Onslaught to seemingly destroy the heroes, Lang saw an opportunity to fan the fires off mutant prejudice, and he played a behind-the-scenes role in the legislation of Operation: Zero Tolerance. When the Thunderbolts debuted and were exposed as criminals, Lang saw yet another opportunity, realizing that any new band of would-be heroes would be distrusted by the public from the start, thus eliminating much of the support mutants have enjoyed from non-mutant organizations of super-heroes. "The final piece fell into place when the Thunderbolts retooled their team to convince the world that they had truly reformed and wanted to serve the public. Since they recruited Hawkeye to lead the team, and in light of their recent upswing in popularity, Lang saw the greatest opportunity yet. Here was a team that the public trusted just enough not to suspect them of anything else, and at the same time they were a team with an obvious need to keep their day-to-day operations clandestine. "And so I believe that recently, Lang has discovered the Thunderbolts' secret headquarters and has overpowered them, replacing the team with impostors of the same type as the X-Sentinels he used against us the last time we battled." "But why?" Jean asked. "The X-Sentinels didn't work before, why try the same trick again? For that matter, who would even be fooled this time?" "Everyone, actually," Xavier answered. "After we returned to earth, we never told anyone about the original X-Sentinels. Even if we had, no one would have believed us. And no one will believe that the Thunderbolts would be involved in two separate deceptions. Besides which, no one would be able to stop them anyway. Numerous law enforcement agencies and private interests have already tried." "So what makes you think we'll do any better?" Nightcrawler asked. "For one thing," Xavier answered. "I have been made privy to some rather exclusive information. I know the location of their secret base." *** The transport craft was unfamiliar at best. Cyclops had managed to familiarize himself with the controls, but it was hardly a the sleek custom Blackbird the team was used to. For starters there was no top to the vehicle. Lucky for Colossus. "I.. am thinking that I was better off on the space shuttle, my friends," the young Russian gurgled. He had transformed his body from its normal state into the invincible metallic form for which he was named. This only heightened the irony of him queasily clutching at his chiseled gut. Logan smiled in spite of himself. "Relax, Peter, we'll be back on the ground before you know it," Cyclops said pleasantly. It was a mask for his true emotional state, and Logan wasn't fooled. If the Professor's little group flashback was worth anything, he had seen Cyclops come very close to killing the man they were about to challenge. Cyclops was no killer, Logan believed. But in the heat of the moment, all sorts of things could happen in battle. And tensions were definitely running high in the X-Men right now. "Ororo, are you all right," Jean asked. She put a hand on Storm's shoulder. "I would have thought this convertible-looking thing would be a pleasant change from the Blackbird. You always complained about it being too cramped." The white-haired woman leaned glumly over the side of the aircraft. "Under normal circumstances, I might have enjoyed this ride. But my mind has been transfixed on the events we witnessed in that video." Jean nodded. "I know what you mean. The idea of the Professor taking responsibility for that... thing... It runs shivers down my spine. And from the looks of things, the future doesn't look very bright for us. All I can say is that when it happens we'll deal with it as best we can, just like the X-Men have dealt with every obstacle. And the one thing we can take solace in is that there will definitely _be_ an X-Men to deal with those things we saw." "Oh, there's an X-Men all right, darlin'," Logan piped in. He still wasn't used to the new jumpsuit she was wearing on this mission. When they were abducted by the Sentinels, Jean wasn't even officially on the team, and she was wearing a long black dress at the time. Of course, after the battle they had been through, there hadn't been that much left of it. Xavier had remembered that detail quite well, and had a fairly bland outfit ready for Jean when they arrived. To be perfectly honest, he preferred the tattered dress. "There's an X-Men, but from the sound of things, it ain't a group I'd wanna be in. Not when there's a lemon on the team." "And how do we know it isn't you who went bad, Wolverine?" Nightcrawler taunted. He leaned back in his seat and let the wind ruffle the thick black hair on his face and arms. "No offense, of course. All I'm saying is that we should let tomorrow take care of itself. From the sound of things, Herr Xavier has things well in hand." "Funny thing," Logan muttered, hands cradling a cigar from the wind as he lit it, "the way it looks to me, Big Daddy X has it set up so tomorrow and today are the same flamin' thing. And wouldn't ya know it, we have to play clean up crew for both." "Lad has a point at that," Banshee noted. "That's enough of that, Wolverine!" Cyclops shouted. "You heard the Professor, just like we all did. It isn't his fault we wound up here--no, that blame falls squarely on one Dr. Steven Lang! Just like everything else that's gone wrong in our lives recently! You have a complaint, you can take it up with him!" Logan took a long puff on his stogie. "Yeah, well for those of us who _don't_ eat up every little thing the Prof says with a spoon, we'd like a little more assurance than that, One-Eye! Doesn't it seem a little strange that we escape the biggest scrap of our lives to get sent right back in swingin'? We're all on edge as it is and we're just supposed to assume this ain't a trap--?" "Find a stocking and STUFF IT, Wolverine!" Cyclops shouted. "I'm having a hard enough time flying this rustbucket without having to listen to your bellyaching! And I certainly don't plan on turning this crate around because you have a case of the butterflies! We're stopping Lang, and that's final!" The flying machine fell silent for a few minutes after that. Logan pushed Cyclops because of legitimate grievances, usually resulting in a heated argument, but even he had to admit that he had pushed too hard this time. He wasn't afraid of a fight--fighting was what he did--but he wasn't stupid either. This was a mistake, and he knew it. The X-Men were at the boiling point, and Xavier was turning the heat up, apparently assuming that the team could perform under that kind of strain. Best case scenario: Xavier was making a critical error. Worst case scenario: this was a trick. Oh, he accepted the time-travel line. The radio supported it. The newspaper Professor X gave them was dated accurately. All of that could be faked of course, but it would have made the deception too elaborate. It would have been just as easy to drop the time-travel angle and still convince the X-Men to tackle some gang of also-rans. That wasn't what bothered him. A lot could happen in the time they had lost. Who could say Professor Charles Xavier was the same man they once knew? The guy who recruited him to join the team--and in doing so rescued him from a life of paperwork in Canadian intelligence--would never have unleashed a creature like Onslaught on the world, right? So what else was this guy capable of doing? It wasn't that he didn't trust the man. But if the man _wasn't_ trustworthy, would his story have held as much water for the team? Xavier had admitted that his conclusions were based on circumstantial evidence. How easy would it be for an enemy to conspire with these "Thunderbolts" to ambush the X-Men before the battle could even begin? How easily could an enemy put together some unrelated video footage and call it a briefing? It was too convenient. Something smelled rotten, and he was one man who always trusted his nose. His brooding was interrupted by a pipe held in front of his face. "Got another light on you, by any chance?" It was Banshee. "Sure thing, Irish," he grumbled, producing a book of matches from under the belt of his costume. "Knock yerself out." "Much obliged," he said cheerily. The older gentleman began busily preparing his own tobacco consumption and did his best to revive the conversation in the process. "Y'know," he said quietly, "I'd be lying if I said I was a hundred percent convinced of all this, but I think we have to see this through. laddie. We owe the Professor that much at least." "Maybe so," Logan admitted. "But do me a favor and grow a pair of eyes in the back of that head of yours, will ya? I got a bad feeling we're gonna need 'em before this day's up." *** Their destination wasn't too hard to find. It was the only mountain with the door open. "Nice. Real nice," Logan muttered. "Quiet!," Cyclops snapped. "Let's move in. Try to get a better look at their base. We'll need every possible advantage against these robots." "I can sense their thoughts, Scott," Jean whispered. "I don't know if that confirms them as humans or just very sophisticated simulations, but I can keep track of them telepathically at any rate." "Good," Cyclops said grimly. "Keep me informed as to what they're doing." He waved the others ahead. "Let's move, people." The rest of them fell in behind the leader and proceeded into the labyrinthine headquarters, checking each doorway they passed for any vital information. Most of the rooms were abandoned or appeared to have never been used to begin with. At last they came across a different story. "It is a child's room," Colossus commented. "And look at this." He picked up a scrapbook and flipped through the pages. "Newspaper clippings," Banshee said. "Looks like every piece of pro-Thunderbolts press ever written. And it's been recently updated." "So they've been keeping up appearances," Cyclops said. "That only means the robots believe themselves to be the genuine article--Is that Warren?" He held up the third to last page for Jean to see the black and white photo. "Not many other people he could be, Scott, not with those wings of his. I wonder if the Professor sent him to reconnoiter this place ahead of us." "Possible," Logan said. Actually, it was hard to be certain. It was a veritable smorgasbord of scents. Virtually everybody had been through this place at some time or another, and it he could just barely discern the new scents from the old. Factor in that he had never really been around the X-Men's Angel long enough to distinguish his scent, and all he could say was, "Can't say for sure." Fifteen minutes later, they found five more recently occupied quarters--among dozens of empty ones, and came to one definite conclusion. "This place is huge," Storm said. "We cannot just search through it forever. Eventually we will be discovered." "I agree with the lovely lady," Nightcrawler added. "Better to confront them now while we still have surprise on our side." "I'm beginning to lean in that general direction myself," Cyclops admitted. "Jean, can you take us to them?" "Yes," she replied. "They appear to be... training." "Robots who work out. Now there's a perfectly reasonable development," Logan groused. "They'll need all the practice they can get, boyo," Banshee chuckled. "They're up against the real thing this time." Exactly seven minutes later they were outside the door to the gym, flattened against the wall on either side of the door. Cyclops motioned to his ear, then his wrist, then his visor. They all nodded in acknowledgment. They'd listen in on their opponents, wait for Cyclops to strike first with his eyebeams, and that would be the signal to enter, cutting off their only exit. Logan closed his eyes in mental preparation. The X-Men were already off-balance, and any inner strength he could call upon would be desperately needed here. From inside the room, their quarry's unsuspecting voices rang through the air. "Don't let up, gang! Charlie's a tough customer, he can take it and then some!" "Speak for yourself, Hawkeye! I'd be a lot happier if everyone would think of me as the adorable new kid! I'd probably be getting fewer lumps that way!" "I may not be able to affect your non-conductive charcoal body with my bio-electricity, Charlie, but I can dodge your blows, and set you up for the big guns, like my pal 'Tiny' here!" "Pleased to meet you!" "Watch him, Atlas! You're stronger than he is at your size, but you can still lose him if he--" "Yeeoowwch! You lousy--!" "--ignites. Songbird, do you want to put this little man down or should I?" "Why should you be bothered to do any work, Moonstone? Besides, all I have to do is create a couple of solid sound bubbles and grab the Briquette by his feet. Now I just hold him upside down in midair and viola!" "Hey, put me down!" "Aaaaannd that's sixty-three seconds! Not bad, Charcoal, and not bad for the rest of you guys either, considering it took a lot longer than that for you to beat Charlie back when he was working for the Secret Empire." "Hey, gimme a little credit. I did just recover from getting tortured for a week by those Imperial dweebs. Some gratitude, huh? And are you ever gonna put me down, Songbird?" "Thinking... thinking..." "Keep it up, S.B. and it'll be your turn to run the gauntlet!" "Sure, Hawkeye, nothing boosts morale like ganging up on our own teammates and calling it training." "You mock me now, but this is how we used to do it when I started on the Avengers. Just be thankful you don't have to try to trade blows Captain America for a full minute." "Actually that sounds like a lot of fun to me--" Cyclops jerked his head into the door and fired a wide beam, cutting off whoever was speaking in midsentence. Logan rushed past him to get into the room and leaped for the largest target to present itself. "Dibs on the big man, folks. The rest of you are on your own!" He unsheathed the adamantium claws from his wrists and brandished them menacingly as he descended onto the giant. "Blast it, Wolverine, we're supposed to be fighting as a team!" Cyclops yelled in futility. He continued his barrage of crimson energy from his visor, The first shot had taken three of them--Hawkeye, Jolt, and Songbird--off their feet. Now he sought to press that advantage with a more focused force beam. While Logan slashed at the big guy, he saw out of the corner of his eye as the red rays splashed harmlessly off a pink force field. "The X-Men!?" Atlas yelled as he dodged Logan’s swipes. The big man swung a massive fist to try to swat him off, but Logan ducked it just in time. "How did they find us?" "Ask questions later, Atlas!" Hawkeye shouted. "Right now just shoot first and we'll sort it out when we get the chance. Hit 'em, T-Bolts!" Banshee and Storm took to the air and Hawkeye responded with a smoke arrow from his quiver. But before the obscuring gas could have an effect it was dispersed in a gust of wind. "You will have no luck using my own element against me, Thunderbolt," Storm declared, channeling that old "goddess of weather" persona she liked to do from time to time. "Instead, you will find your own tricks turned against you!" With a motion of her hand a fog suddenly condensed around the purple-clad archer. "Lemme give you a hand with that behemoth, Wolverine," Banshee offered. With a powerful scream, a blast of sonic force coursed from his mouth and slammed into Atlas as if he were a dozen times smaller. The powerhouse Thunderbolt toppled against the rear wall of the gym. "Thanks, Irish," Logan said. "And remind me never to get on your bad side within my lifetime." "Keep it up with that 'Irish' crack and you might see that side just yet--" Banshee said amicably, but then cut off by a massive ebony fist to his back. "How about trying that trick on me, fella?" challenged the monster named Charcoal. "If you ever get your wind back, that is." Logan was about to return Banshee's favor, when he felt a searing pain against his own back. "I'd stay out of that if I were you," a lilting voice taunted. "You have enough problems of your own!" Logan turned around just in time to see a knockout blonde--Moonstone, according to the Professor's briefing--collide with him head on, and knock him on his back. He shook his head and braced himself for her next attack, and to his surprise he saw nothing but her backside as she called out to help one of her teammates. "Big mistake, Goldie," he said. "See, I heal real fast, and you just showed me how tough you really are. Probably tough enough to survive THIS!" and he thrust a clawed hand through her back and clean out the other side. It might have been a brutally fatal move against a normal woman. He had expected it to be merely impressive. Instead, he stood there dumbfounded while his arm was sticking straight through her upper body--and she simply floated there like she was a ghost. "Probably," she said, turning around to face him, and striking him with a roundhouse right. That much of her was solid enough, he noted. After landing on the floor again, he popped his jaw back into place and decided to pick a different sparring partner. "Excuse me, mein fruend!" Nightcrawler beamed as he leapfrogged over Logan's back without warning. He watched the German circus performer dive after the girl in black and yellow. "Duty calls!" He knew her name was Jolt, and that she generated bursts of bioelectricity, which additionally served as the source for her enhanced speed and strength. Logan also knew that none of that would help her against Kurt Wagner. "What's the deal, here?" she asked defiantly. "Did Archangel spread some nasty rumors about us or something?" She dodged Nightcrawler's lunge and responded with a devastating kick of her own--or it would have been at least, if he hadn't disappeared, leaving nothing but a puff of smoke and brimstone in his wake. Before Jolt could react, Nightcrawler was behind her, and tapped her on the shoulder. "Looking for me, fraulen?" he asked casually. Jolt swung an arm at him, but he disappeared again, rematerializing just above her head. Jolt leaped out of the path of his descent. "I don't know what'll kill me first," she coughed, "his speed or the rotten eggs smell he leaves behind. Logan paused, which was a bit unusual for him, he had to admit. So far, the Thunderbolts hadn't really done anything to resemble the X-Sentinels he had fought before. On the other hand, the X-Sentinels were convincing impostors, and he had no idea what the true Thunderbolts were like to begin with. He needed to know more, and-- The whisper of a flying projectile caught his ear and he turned around to catch an arrow in his hand just inches from his face. It was a weighted rubber tip, designed to knock out an opponent, without killing him. He still found it offensive, and human or otherwise, no one took shots at him without some kind of response. "I need a hand here, gang!" Hawkeye called out. "We're outnumbered seven to six, so let's work on whittling down the odds!" Logan was about to lend Storm a hand in dealing with the archer, but he was suddenly interrupted by a new player in the unfolding tableau. Just when he was starting to get into it. "What in the world?" A dumpy man in a purple leotard gasped as he happened to pass by the entrance. "Hawkeye, what's going on?!" "We're entertaining guests, Ogre!" the marksman shouted as he yanked on a cable he had entangled Storm with. "These guys mean business! Now get scarce, and fast!" Logan stared at the little man in the archway for a second, then glanced at Banshee who seemed just as confused as he was. "The Ogre..." he said. "Now why didn't the Professor mention him being in this mountain?" "Probably because he didn't know himself!" Cyclops yelled in reply. "Someone go after him!" Logan sheathed his claws and headed for the door. "I'll handle it, Cyke. I've been looking forward to doin' some huntin'." With the Thunderbolts occupied by his teammates, he was outside without any attempt at resistance. The Ogre was already out of sight. He sniffed the air and caught the man's scent. Something wasn't right about it. It wasn't exactly a smell he'd call human. More like someone had used a can of human scented aerosol spray to cover up something else. So maybe the Professor was right all along. Big flaming deal. The consolation was that this one would be child's play to locate. About fifty meters from the gym he found his prey huffing and puffing down the corridor. "Can't...let... them find me..." he wheezed. Logan was on top of him before he could turn around. He isolated the man's neck between two of the three claws on his right hand. "Don't hurt me!" he pleaded. "Sure thing," Logan sneered. "As long as you tell me everything I wanna know about a guy by the name of Steven Lang. Do we have a deal?" "I-I don't know who that is!" Logan tsked. "That is a shame, isn't it, bub? Of course, I didn't expect you to say much. I just wanted to get close enough to get a good whiff of you. Make sure nobody would be too upset if I did... this!" He put the middle claw into the Ore's throat, and while a trickle of red liquid confused him for a moment, Logan soon found the telling odor of machine lubricant and ozone underneath. He finished the job, taking his head clean off his body in one swipe. Electric sparks flew from the Ogre's neck in dramatic fashion. "Looks like I owe the Professor an apology," Logan said. He tapped the head with his boot absent mindedly. "Why? Did you decapitate him, too?" the head asked, now grinning menacingly. Logan was genuinely startled, but he quickly recovered. After all, just because it looked human didn't mean that a mortal blow would disable it. He raised his clawed hands to strike the head again, but before he could bring them down he was struck from the side by an energy blast from the Ogre's maimed body. Momentarily stunned, Logan fell to the ground, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the headless figure stoop down and pick up his bearded cranium, placing it atop his neck as casually as a hat. "I've been paying attention," he said, rubbing at the gash in his flesh while the metal inside rebuilt itself. "You're not the X-Men. Where's Marrow? And Shadowcat? I find it a little suspicious that you'd be stupid enough to attack the Thunderbolts at anything less than full strength." Logan had no idea who those people were, but it didn't take a genius to guess. And at the moment, he didn't really care. There was a ringer, an unknown quantity not even Xavier had been privy to. If this machine was a Sentinel, it could defend itself even after sustaining heavy damage. It could enact repairs in a matter of seconds. He knew he had to keep it occupied. "Maybe it's none of your flamin' business, Tin Man," he muttered, slowly returning to his feet. "Maybe you won't be alive long enough to figure it out." He lunged for the Ogre again with his claws. His only chance was to hurt the thing badly enough that he could chop it up into tiny pieces before it could recover. Unfortunately, this was not to be. "Oh please," he said arrogantly, his hands grasping his like steel vices--in fact, they might have really been steel vices, as they had dramatically changed shape, becoming larger and stronger while ripping out of the human veneer. "I may have given you a false sense of superiority before--running off like that. But I think I'm far enough away from the Thunderbolts to risk revealing my true form. Besides, you've already wrecked my disguise, cutting me up like that. It'll take me at least five seconds to grow new skin so no one notices the scar. So I figure the least you owe me is a chance to satisfy my burning curiosity. This won't hurt," he said as he injected a needle-looking device from one of his fingers into his arm. "Well, to be honest I wouldn't know if it hurts. I don't care, really." Logan flinched in pain, then finally went unconscious. He awoke to find no sign of the Ogre--if that was even who he was--and in moments his healing factor had restored him to normal. He smelled the air for his foe, but he found no trace of him. He shrugged, promising to get to the bottom of it later, after he rejoined the others in the gym. The battle hadn't been going well in his absence. On paper, the odds were even, but it was becoming evident that the Thunderbolts--most of them, anyway--were seasoned veterans compared to this lineup of X-Men. He saw each of them locked in a stalemate or worse. "Mister, I've fought Cyclops before, and you'll have to do a lot better than that to put this Songbird down!" the frail shouted from behind a pink shield of solid sound. Cyclops simply held his ground and kept firing. "You've been hiding behind that wall of yours since this fight started, Songbird!" Cyclops said through gritted teeth. "And you've been talking trash for almost as long! But you know something, lady? It doesn't mean a blessed thing to me what you say, because I can tell you're starting to buckle under the strain, and I haven't even used the full force of my eyebeams yet! So I guess it's back to the drawing board, huh, Lang! You hear me?! I said--" Logan was about to cry out a warning to the X-Men's leader, but it was too late. With blinding speed, the other woman, Moonstone, streaked across the room, leaving her dogfight with Banshee to snatch Cyclops' visor in her hands. "I wouldn't speak for this 'Lang', Cyclops, but I heard you pretty well. Saying something about the full force of your powers. Why don't you show us, hmm?" Instinctively, Scott clamped his eyes shut as the visor left his face. Helplessly he spun around to find the source of the voice. "You maniac! Without the ruby-quartz lenses in that visor, I can't control my power! I could kill us all!" Logan raced to his teammate's aid, but was intercepted by Songbird. She snared him in a giant pink pair of pliers. "Bad move, midget!" she said. "Karla just gave me a helping hand and us T-Bolts try to pay up on our debts!" Logan unsheathed his claws, but to no avail. She had pinned his arms to his sides, effectively cutting off any counter-offense he could possibly muster. Never one to give up, he strained against the sonic construct, but in vain. "Somehow, I don't think you're the lose-control type, now are you, Cyclops?" Moonstone teased, dangling the golden headpiece just above his flailing reach. I'm sure you'll think of something, sooner or later." He did. The senior X-Man just barely opened his eyelids, allowing a small portion of the deadly energy to escape his squint. It was crude, but mildly effective, Logan noticed. But he still couldn't see. Moonstone dodged his wild shots with ease. "Scott! Let me help you!" Moonstone called as she swooped behind him at roughly ground level. Somehow she had managed to change her voice to resemble a passable Jean Grey, and while Cyclops might not have fallen for it under normal circumstances, he was already past the breaking point as it was. "Jean?!" he cried. "Get back! I have to stop this one before she damages my visor! And I don't dare risk hurting you!" Moonstone backed off and continued her ruse. "I'll come over and aim your head, Scott! When I tell you, open your eyes! Ready?" Cyclops nodded and she swooped in and put her hands on the back of his skull, moving his head to give the illusion of aiming for a target. "Cyke! Don't, she's--" Logan tired to say, but he never got the chance. "NOW!" Moonstone shouted, and her foe opened his eyes as wide as he could--straight into Colossus's back. The metal-skinned Russian screamed in pain as his body was shoved violently into his own sparing partner, Charcoal. The obsidian creature fell over as Colossus slammed into him, but he was relatively unscathed. A layer of flaky black matter crumbled off to reveal a dazzling crystal surface underneath. "Looks like you took the worst of that, huh, Ivan?" Charcoal bragged. "Too bad I had to go and turn my body into something hard like diamond, instead of maybe some nice powdery soot. But a fella can't be polite all the time!" He lifted Colossus to his feet and slugged him once more for good measure. Peter simply lay on the floor, unmoving. "God forgive me!" Cyclops whispered. "Was that Peter? Jean, what--?" His question was left unanswered. Of course, Jean hadn't been there to begin with, and now Moonstone had simply left him to pursue some other X-Man. He was isolated, and now he was so horrified that he had hurt one of his own that he didn't dare to open his eyes now. "Jean! Someone tell me what's going on?" Logan tried to call out to him, but Songbird was one step ahead, clamping his mouth shut with a sonic barrier. It was sickening, he thought. It would have been better for Moonstone to have simply decked Cyke and left it at that. Instead, toying with him and keeping anyone else from coming to his aid, it was simply cruel. Even if the Thunderbolts weren't robots, he realized, they were just as inhuman. As for the real Jean Grey, she was locked in combat with the Thunderbolts' resident big man, Atlas. The giant, easily thirty feet tall in the spacious rec room, held her in both hands as she carried out an all-out assault on his psyche. At least, that was what Logan figured she was up to. The pained grimace on Atlas's face couldn't have just been from the strain of holding her in his hands. "Stop... fighting me... and put me down... you big ape!" Jean fumed. Logan hadn't really figured a dope like Atlas would be that resistant to telepathic attack, but it wasn't the outside of a man that counted in that sort of battleground. "No... no way, red! I ain't lettin' you get a chance to try any of that brain stuff on the others. You may be tough, but my noggin's been through worse scrapes than this! Boot camp... Zemo's personal army... and gettin' my size changing powers--they all took a toll on my mind, but I kept comin' back, more disciplined than before, and anything you got to dish out doesn't even compare to what I went through in Kosmos! So you just keep it up... till one of us can't stay standing!" Hawkeye was less than enthralled with that suggestion. From under a barrage of golf ball sized hail, he called out to his team. "Somebody give Atlas a hand with that telepath, huh? I'd be just tickled pink if we could get out of this scrape with as few lobotomized T-Bolts as possible!" Too bad for him that the others were all occupied. Logan had managed to draw Songbird's full attention. She was more exhausted from repelling Cyclops than she had let on, and she couldn't do any more to him than merely restrain him--and that was beginning to give a little too. Jolt was still trying to keep up with Nightcrawler. The two had been focused on outmaneuvering each other since the beginning. Moonstone and Charcoal had turned their efforts to Banshee, but were presently overwhelmed by his sonic screams. And Hawkeye was too busy defending himself from Storm to help anyone else. That left Cyclops wandering by his lonesome. "Jean?" he called again at Hawkeye's mention of the telepath. He craned his head left to right, hoping to catch some sound to help him get his bearings. It was about then Logan realized how much he took his own heightened senses for granted. He could have found Jeannie in the dark with his ears stuffed with cotton, if need be. Of course, he also let himself get caught like a flaming amateur... Without warning, Cyclops suddenly turned to face Atlas and opened his eyes, smothering him in his mutant energy blast. His hands, conveniently out of the range of fire, slackened their grip in reflex, and Jean was able to escape with a telekinetic push to her sides. She descended to the ground as gently as a feather, and rushed to her rescuer's side. "Scott, your visor..." "Atlas!" Hawkeye yelled as he dodged a lightning bolt from Storm's fingertips. The giant dropped to his knees and fell unconscious on his face. "Blast it, Moonstone, I thought you put the kibosh on Cyclops!" "Well, I had," Moonstone called back, leaving Charcoal to face Banshee alone. Logan chuckled to himself. The blonde was clever but conceited. Given a chance, they could win this yet. "Dang it, Karla, that was nothing but carelessness on your part, and now Atlas has to be the one who pays for it!" The archer skillfully evaded Storm's relentless offense and drew an arrow from his quiver, nocked it and fired in one sweeping motion. The arrow struck Jean where her shoulder met her neck, and she fell to the ground, squirming in pain. "Scott..." she trailed off. "The X-Men's leader grabbed her in both hands and held tightly. "Jean, what's happening? Jean! If any of you soulless monsters have hurt the woman I love, I'll--" "Oh, do shut up." Moonstone quickly slapped Cyclops' visor back on his head, then cold-cocked him before he could react to his sight being restored. "Would it help if I said I was sorry?" she asked Hawkeye sarcastically. "It would help if you tried taking this seriously, Moonstone," Songbird shouted. "We can't defend ourselves from these chumps _and_ your blunders at the same--huh?" The distraction had been the very thing Logan had waited for. With Songbird’s focus divided, he had found just enough give in her sonic field to dislocate his left shoulder, and to raise it free. Now he took a swipe at the pink energy with his claws--hoping all the while that he could sever the grip faster than she could reinforce it--and he was free at last. More importantly, he was angry. "How about a clean fight for a change, folks?" he snarled. "Instead of takin' potshots at us from behind our backs?" "Oh, fine!" Hawkeye muttered. "Anyone else got a ball they wanna drop?!" He pounced onto Songbird and grabbed her mouth before she could react. "I ain't big on hittin' ladies," he said, "but way I figure it, you ain't much of a lady--or anything else without those fluffy pink things you toss at people." Songbird struggled against him, but she was clearly outpowered and outleveraged. With Logan poised on top of her, the best she could muster was a gesture with her free hand that served only to confirm his last comment. "I been called worse, but the feelin' is mutual, babe." He raised his claws to finish her off. Suddenly he was knocked off of his quarry by a gust of wind. "No!" Storm cried. "Wolverine, have you taken leave of your senses!?" This was what he had meant before about the way the others looked at him. Even now, the other X-Men were nearly paralyzed with shock from the image of Wolverine carving up a human being, even after they had been aware of the fact that it wasn't human at all. "Lay off, 'Roro!" he snapped back. "Chuck said these mooks weren't human, and I'm startin' to see it his way! Who cares if I scrap a pile of transistors, anyway?" Songbird was already back to her feet, and other Thunderbolts were gathering around to see what was happening. In spite of this, Storm kept her focus on Wolverine. "The Professor said he _believed_ them to be machines," she said. "And while we all trust his instincts, I feel it would be wise to merely incapacitate these beings, so we can make that determination later. What if they truly are human? Would you be willing to take the risk?" "Besides, we can take them just as easily without hurtin' 'em too much, Wolverine," Banshee added. He flew over to Songbird and unleashed a sonic scream, buffeting the Thunderbolt with tremendous force. And despite her diminutive size, Songbird stood her ground. Stood her ground and laughed. "Nice try, O'Toole, but you just screwed up big time!" Songbird screamed. "See, I can absorb sonic attacks, too! Absorb it, and redirect it, like this!" And before anyone could react, she produced a burst of pink energy which engulfed the unsuspecting Banshee. Within the maelstrom his form could be seen tumbling backward, then breaking apart. When it subsided, his body fell to the floor, smoldering and charred. Other than strips of his trademark green and yellow uniform, he was unrecognizable. The X-Men stared at his lifeless husk in terror. "That settles it!" Logan howled, leaping onto Charcoal. "Don't hold back on these monsters!" "I--I..." Storm shuddered as she looked on at the cinder that was once her teammate. "You have much to answer for, 'Thunderbolt'!" Nightcrawler barked as he renewed his assault against Jolt. "Before I was content to toy with one as young and pretty as yourself. Now the actions of your friends have shown me just how dangerous you truly are!" Again, he teleported himself to random locations, dodging every attack Jolt made. This time, however, he began to take the offensive, tagging the girl with chops and kicks of his own. Jolt weathered his assault grimly, but seemed unconcerned. At last Logan saw why. He turned to slash at Charcoal's body, then glanced at Kurt, and saw an arrow explode in front of him. Rather than teleport to escape, he stumbled back from the blast, too dazed to react. "I knew you'd get sloppy sooner or later," Hawkeye gloated lining up his bow for a second shot. "You did a good job avoiding Jolt in a random fashion so she couldn't predict where you'd be. But once you started connecting a few hits of your own, you were all set up for Br'er Hawkeye to knock you down!" "And if he's done narrating," Jolt added," then Sis'er Jolt will make sure you _stay_ down!" She struck Nightcrawler with a sparkling right hand she clearly had been saving up for all day. Logan didn't bother to check if his friend was still breathing after that blow. He simply focused on the task of beating Charcoal. "Give it up, man. I can reassemble my Charcoal body faster than you can cut me up, the worst you're gonna do is make me mad!" He didn't care. He was beyond reasoning now. Logan had seen more than enough to send him into a beserker rage. He simply kept on the creature, slashing again and again until one of them fell--permanently. Charcoal, however, had a more sensible resolution. Logan began to feel the temperature around him rise. His enemy had burst into flame. "I said, back off!" With that, he sent a jet of flame streaming from his hand into Logan's midsection. The force knocked him back--back towards Banshee's corpse. He smelled the sickly sweet smell of burnt flesh--both his own and Sean's. Then he picked up something else. Something that shook him to the core. "Last chance, Storm!" Hawkeye called, aiming his bow at her flying figure. "Surrender peacefully or we'll bring you down by force. What's it gonna be?" "She raised her arms then balled her hands into fists. "Thunderbolts, I desire nothing more than a peaceful resolution to this conflict. But I am first and foremost an X-Man, and you have callously murdered one of my comrades and dearest friends--murdered him and perhaps the others as well. And by the savage winds at my command I cannot allow that crime to go unavenged!" She brought her hands down, and from them emerged a fierce bolt of lightning, which struck Moonstone square in the chest. She staggered backward while Hawkeye let fly his arrow. The arrow snapped in half before it came close to approaching her. "Rats," he muttered. "I can't hit her if she keeps changing the wind conditions surrounding her! Any ideas, crew?" Logan watched as Jolt leaped onto Hawkeye's shoulders from behind, plucking an arrow from his quiver. "Yeah, here's one, Hawk!" she replied, leaping at the last of the X-Men. "I can jump through those winds with a lot less resistance than an arrow, and Storm's electrical powers are only gonna feed my own bioelectric energy!" She had telegraphed the move, and Storm withdrew from the path of her jump, but Jolt simply threw the arrow like a spear, striking it's target and releasing a quick-hardening paste which covered the African mutant's body. Without the billowing folds of her cape to harness the winds, she dropped from the air like a stone, crashing appropriately enough before Jolt's feet as she landed. Logan slowly rose to his feet and looked on at the five Thunderbolts as they gathered around him. Logan knew what he had to do now. He turned and ran. "What the--?" "Is this the same Wolverine I was thinking of?" "Never mind that! Songbird, Jolt, stay behind and secure the others, the rest of us spread out and find him before he gets away!" They wouldn't find him, he knew that for certain. His healing factor had already repaired the injuries he had sustained from the fight. He knew the way out, and he knew how to stay out of sight when he wanted to. More to the point, the door was still open to the Thunderbolts' base. It was beginning to become clear just how secret their hideout was since they had been totally unprepared for dealing with intruders. He had already revved up the X-Men's transportation when he heard their footsteps getting louder. Logan gunned what he was pretty certain was the accelerator, and just barely made it out the aperture with a giant hand reaching out for him in vain. He didn't look back, even though every fiber of his being screamed out in concern for his friends. He wanted a smoke so bad he could taste it, but he didn't reach for the cigar he knew he had in his belt. He just kept his eyes on his destination, and his thoughts trained squarely on Professor Charles Xavier. *** He entered the safehouse without a word. Sitting by the fire was Xavier, casually perusing through a book. At the slam of the door, he turned to see who had come in. "Wolverine," he said quietly. Logan didn't speak. He just stared hard at the other man. "The X-Men have failed. I see the images in your mind quite clearly, Wolverine. There was nothing you could have done. I am only... saddened that my plan has cost the others their lives." He wheeled his char around to look at him. "I... also know that you feel betrayed. I promised that you would return to your own time unscathed. I can't explain how this has happened." "I can." Logan stormed to the chair and grabbed Xavier by his shirt. "You lied to us. From the beginning. You set us out there to lay down our lives to satisfy whatever beef you got with the Thunderbolts. Well it stops here. It's confession time." "What are you talking about, Wolverine?" Xavier asked innocently. "Surely you don't believe I'd risk the X-Men's lives on a petty grudge--" "You sick monster!" Logan hissed as he picked him up from the chair. "None of those poor jerks died back there! They were never alive! The Thunderbolts weren't the robots!" He dropped Xavier and popped one of his claws out, slicing open his own flesh. He didn't fully believe it himself, but he knew, and sure enough a compilation of wires and machinery laid within his arm. "We were." Xavier sighed. "How did you find out?" "I didn't really buy your story from the start, 'Chuck'," Logan began. "Maybe that's why I paid closer attention to anything that would throw your theory into doubt. When the T-Bolts found out we invaded their HQ, they were shocked and upset, but they didn't seem too mad about us uncovering their plot. And while we fought, they didn't seem overly violent, but they were willing to use deadly force without hesitation. But I've seen cold-blooded killers before, and they don't crack light-hearted jokes to each other while they do their dirty work. It didn't make sense to me, and then I smelled Banshee's body. "Machine lubricant. That got me thinking. How did he get burnt to a crisp from a blast of sonic energy? I'll tell you why: He overloaded. Whatever simulated his own sonic powers overloaded and destroyed him from the inside out. "And when Cyke lost his visor and was the only one who could stop Atlas, he somehow pinpointed exactly which way to face so he could take him down. Yeah, maybe Jean gave him a telepathic nudge, but she seemed kinda busy at the time. I say he had help. Some kind of internal sensors compensating for his closed eyes." "I pieced together the rest on my way back here. I don't know how Lang built the first group of X-Sentinels, but I'd figure he scanned the old X-Men somehow and got a reading of their powers and minds, and he programmed his robots to duplicate them. So maybe while he had us on his orbital platform, he got a scan of the rest of us, too. And he had a set of new X-Sentinels built. Only he never got a chance to use them, because the whole place blew up, and the X-Men escaped, like you said. So those robots must have survived somehow, and now--all this time later--we were finally activated. "You told us this cockamamie story about time-travel to account for our last memories bein' so long ago, and you sent us to go whack the Thunderbolts, exploiting our anger over what Steven Lang did to us--to them! What he did to the real X-Men and we remember happening to us. You used our hatred for Lang, and our unwavering loyalty to you, and you turned the X-Men into your personal weapon. Well, that weapon just backfired." He put his claws against Xaviers neck. "So why don't you tell me who you are and what you're trying to pull?" "Perhaps I should be the one to answer that!" a new voice rang out over the unfolding drama. Both of them turned to face the third man as he stepped out from the shadows and into the light of the fireplace. "Gentlemen, and I use the term _extremely_ loosely, my name is Elliot Jennings, one of the ruling class of the Secret Empire. Whether you know it or not, you are both my subjects, to do with as I please. Be mindful of that fact." "The secret what--?" Wolverine asked, dumbfounded. Buddy, the only group I know of by that name was a crime cartel that disbanded a long time back. You look like an extra from a Shakespeare play..." "Fool! I represent a new Secret Empire, one whose aims far surpass any incarnation that has gone before. And those aims would have been reached all the sooner if not for the interference of the accursed Thunderbolts! And so I have been commissioned to head a project designed to eliminate those meddlers." "So you're the guy who found Lang's toybox and wound us up like mechanical soldiers," Logan concluded. "So why use us?" "The Secret Empire's connections are vast, knave," Jennings explained. "We had learned from the media of the Thunderbolts brief alliance with the mutant Archangel of the X-Men. So we considered the possibility that Archangel might have valuable information on the Thunderbolts which he might have shared with his compatriots in the X-Men. Following that line of reasoning, we focused on finding some way to elicit that information by exploring various sites of X-Men activity. I myself was in charge of the operation to salvage the Sentinel Orbital Platform to find any weaponry which might have survived the destruction of the satellite. When I found a chamber containing eight androids, I reported it to my superiors and they gave me permission to reprogram you to serve the Empire." "Funny, but I ain't feelin' all that loyal, bub." "Alas, this Lang was very meticulous in the design of you 'X-Sentinels' as you call yourselves," Jennings went on. "Without his personal access codes, we could not alter your personalities to make you submissive to the Empire--not without altering other parts of your programming we wanted in tact, like your experience and skills derived from the true X-Men. So we settled for risking just one of the androids, the Charles Xavier duplicate. His was the least formidable of the set, having but a fraction of the telepathic prowess of the real thing, so we erased his old personality and made him into a brilliant character actor, who could deceive you into carrying out our orders. We sent the Xavier robot to the real Xavier's mansion in Westchester, and he defeated and replaced him. Our Xavier read the mind of the real one, and found that he had indeed learned the location of the Thunderbolts' lair from Archangel. From there it was simply a matter of him sending the remaining seven androids on a suicide mission against them." "And we failed miserably," Logan said. "And you made the mistake of letting me in on the plan. Maybe I ain't the real Wolverine, but I sure feel like him, and I don't like bein' used." He approached Jennings slowly, claws flashing from the reflected light of the fire. Jennings simply pulled out a firearm and shot him with a beam of light. Although he felt no physical pain, a wave of dread suddenly washed over him, and he sank to the ground in a heap. "Impetuous fool... surely you didn't think we hadn't prepared for the possibility of your... heroic influences turning you against us, did you? Did you really think I would confront you unprotected?" He held up his rifle. "This is a radio transceiver, which activates a termination circuit in your central processing unit. In three minutes you will die, for lack of a better term. But don't worry, we can still salvage you for reprogramming, perhaps even mass production. Imagine an army of android Wolverines at the beck and call of the Secret Empire. Who could possibly stand against us?" "We'd be happy to give it a try." Logan weakly looked up to see Moonstone standing right behind Jennings. The aristocrat turned in shock and soon found himself lifted up off his feet by one super-strong hand. The door opened and the rest of the Thunderbolts joined her. "Who set who up, Jennings?" Hawkeye asked coyly. "Turns out you've been one android short for quite a while." "Indeed," Xavier added. "For while you did send your robot to replace me, Mr. Jennings, the fact is that I replaced him, as I quickly recognized him as the handiwork of Steven Lang. Since the android was designed to resemble human brain patterns, I was able to read his mind and learn that he was working for the Secret Empire against the Thunderbolts. I contacted them and we detailed a plan where I would infiltrate your operation as the robot Xavier, and inform the Thunderbolts of your actions. If any of your personnel suspected me, I simply affected their minds to disregard any telltale human behavior on my part. "Just like he's gonna erase your memories of our HQ, pretty-boy," Songbird grinned. "Then... you're the real Prof... after all?" Logan croaked weakly. "This is impossible!" Jennings stammered. "If you were in collusion all along, why didn't you simply lead them here in the first place?" "Because we both wanted to know how well you had mastered the technology," Xavier explained, "and because the Thunderbolts didn't want to risk invading a perhaps heavily guarded facility when they could fight on familiar ground." "No that it really mattered," Charcoal admitted. "We just toasted all the guards outside in maybe two minutes." "The authorities are already on their way, chump," Hawkeye said. "So we'll just clean up here and leave you to them. And in case you see the head honchos of the Secret Empire before we do, tell 'em not to mess with the Thunderbolts unless they mean business, willya?" Jennings shook his head in disgust as Moonstone set to work tying him to a chair. Xavier and Hawkeye shook hands. "Thanks for playing along with us, Professor," the archer said, "we might have done this without you but it would have been a whole lot nastier." "It was my pleasure, Hawkeye, and the least I could do, considering this all stemmed from old X-Men business." "I'm just sorry we couldn't have gotten together with some of the gang from Westchester on this case. Us T-Bolts haven't been socializing much since we left New York." "Yes, well, once I feel that the team can be reassembled safely, perhaps then. Indeed, I feel I have been reminded of an important lesson by this experience. Too often have I expected blind loyalty from my charges, and here that loyalty was nearly twisted for evil purposes. It makes me wonder if I need to reconsider my role in the X-Men... and perhaps it may be the kernel of an idea..." Logan gurgled and some of the Thunderbolts gathered around him to see what had happened to him. "Geez, is there anything we can do to help this guy?" Atlas asked. "I mean, without the Imperial guys messin' with his head, he's not such a bad guy." "I am afraid the termination sequence is irreversible," Xavier answered. "I could have mentally prevented Jennings from using it, but..." "But I didn't want it that way," Logan answered softly. "Deep down... I didn't wanna live that badly anyway. Not after findin' out my whole life was a sham. Thanks... for respecting that, Chuck. Way I figure it, as long as the real me is still alive out there, I ain't really dead anyway. And that's the way I'd want it." "We'd better get moving," Moonstone reminded the others. "The local law enforcement isn't going to favor us much more than the goons we've captured." "Very well, Thunderbolts," Xavier agreed, "I believe the vehicle you disguised for Wolverine to pilot has been parked out back... The last things he heard were a few quiet murmurs of people leaving. He used to know who they were, but know he couldn't bring himself to remember, or even care. His world dimmed and fell silent. And at last he descended into the warm darkness from which he came, never to return. THE END