"Falling Angels"

Author: Notmanos

E-mail: notmanos at yahoo dot com

Rating: R

Disclaimer: The characters of Angel are owned by 20th Century Fox and Mutant Enemy; the
character of Wolverine is also owned by 20th Century Fox and Marvel Comics. No copyright
infringement intended. I'm not making any money off of this, but if you'd like to be a patron of the
arts, I won't object. ;-) Oh, and Bob is *my* character - keep your hands off!

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8

Bob wasn’t sure what to expect, which was a problem with dropping in unannounced, but still he hadn’t been expecting this - a world made of marble.

Well, at least from where he was standing it was. He had materialized in what looked to be the center of an ancient Roman courtyard, the ground covered in smooth, polished black and white marble; leading to what appeared to be a small temple with large ionic columns of blue marble, with carvings of half naked water bearers etched into them. The sky itself looked marble, with a bright white sky and golden clouds, like hunks of spun metallic threads. Some were shot through with strands of blue, and he assumed those to be storm clouds. “Are we feeling a little garish this week?” He asked aloud. He wasn’t sure where he should go exactly, so he looked around until he found a good place to sit. The steps of the temple were a good place, but he spotted a golden apple tree across the plaza, growing out of a square of dirt cut in the marble, and walked over to it.

It was a small tree, maybe seven feet at the highest, with a slender sienna hued trunk and a bushy, full top of bright green leaves. But buried within, glinting like badly concealed knives, were orbs of gold - the fabled, mythical “apples of discord”, the golden apple that was supposedly the cause of the kidnapping of Helen and the war of Troy.

Of course, this - like so many myths - was pure bullshit. The fruits of this “tree” weren’t apples, and weren’t edible - they were almost pure gold ore, and while relatively soft, he was pretty sure anyone who tried to bite into one would break their teeth clean off. Not that anyone would ever get the chance; again, the myth was wrong. She never shared these things with mortals, or even others who weren’t mortal - they were just her prized example of genetic engineering, a plant that extracted all precious metals from the earth and extruded them as these small, heavy orbs. If she ever let one of these trees on the Human plane, it would probably destroy the world; people would tear each other apart to have the market on these things.

That was how mortals knew of them. In the old days, Eris used to pick out mortals she didn’t like - well, even more so than rest - and let them dream of the “apples” and this miraculous element extracting tree. They would slowly but surely go insane as they tried to find it, or create it, or both. Eris was not a pleasant god by any means, and yet not really malicious - she just didn’t care about anyone or anything. Why should she?

Bob sat beneath the tree, which smelled of fresh greenery and raw minerals, and before his butt had a chance to go numb, she appeared standing about three meters away from him, scowling disapprovingly. “You. What do you want?”

“G’day to you too, Eri,” he said, giving her a mock salute. He suddenly wished he had worn his swagman’s hat.

She liked loose clothing, and she was still sticking to that theme. She was wearing what looked like a crimson silk sari, exposing one chocolate colored leg, and revealing she was wearing gold lace up sandals that tied at her calf, just below the knee. She did like the color gold.

Since he had just sat down, he didn’t bother to stand up. He just looked up into her black eyes, which were filled with stars, and asked, “Do you know what Cammy’s up to?”

Her full lips, painted gold ( of course ) turned down into the smallest of frowns. “ Is he being an asshole again?”

“Yep. I just thought you might want to know we’re on his hit list.”

“Where’s the bulletin there?” She replied blandly. “If he wants to reorder things to suit him, we’d have to be out of the way.”

“Indeed. So you’re keeping’ an eye on him?”

“Why bother? He can’t harm me.”

“That’s just the thing - I’m sure he’s working on it.”

She arched a perfect black eyebrow, but that was all the reaction he got. “I am strife; we are - as much as it pains me to admit this - cousins of a sort. War would not exist without strife. If I ceased to exist, so would he.”

“But you’re not the only god of strife.”

“I am the most important one.”

This was why Bob fully supported all atheist. Most gods were so fucking full of themselves they didn’t need worshipers - they worshiped themselves. “Which is why he’d work doubly hard to take you out.”

“You should worry about yourself,” she remarked coolly. “You’re far more vulnerable than I am.”

That was her nice way of saying “Wimp, he owns your candy ass”. He gave her a sharp smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “At least I’m tryin’ to do something’ about it.”

“Is there a reason why you’re here?”

He shook his head, unable to keep from smiling. “You really don’t care.”

“Camaxtli will never be a true threat to me, no matter what she does.”

“Cammy’s a he again.”

“Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

“If we’re gonna get through his next power play, we have to work together.”

She scoffed, tilting her face up towards a non-existent sun. “I do not work with anyone.”

“Oh, except with Osiri - ”

“Necessity forced my hand.”

Bob hopped to his feet, startling her slightly. Apparently she hadn’t seen any kung fu movies where guys just arched their back and hopped to their feet without using their hands. Bob had always figured it was done by stuntmen on wires, but then he’d seen Logan do it in real life - and handcuffed, no less - and figured no, it could be done, but only if you were really flexible, strong, or well trained. Although Bob just gave himself a more flexible spine and varying gravitational center. He could almost hear Logan saying “Wuss”. “It’s forcin’ it again, sister. Cammy is alignin’ his forces against us ‘cause he wants to fill the power vacuum in the higher realms. I’m not gonna sit back and wait for him to show up one day to disperse me. If you could just get your head out of your ass, you’d see the wisdom in this.”

She looked down her nose at him, like he was a foul little man, dirtying up her pretty space. Good, because that’s just what he wanted to do. Eris was not anyone’ s idea of an ideal date or even an acceptable person to sit next to at a party, but she was the lynchpin of the higher realms - if Cammy successfully got rid of her, it would be a free for all. Fear of Eris kept more beings in check than even she herself would ever know. “Being crude will not help you.”

“And bein’ arrogant will not help you, so I guess we’re even.”

“Hardly. You’re an exile.”

He stared at her in disbelief. “So that’s it? You won’t work with me because I ain’t in the hoity toity club?”

She turned her eternal eyes on him. “Are you speaking a known language?”

“I just saved all your privileged asses. How convenient of you to forget that already.”

“You’d have done so regardless, Bob. That’s the type of being you are.”

“So what kind of being are you, Eris?”

“I’m not a being - I’m god.”

“Then prove it. Fight for yourself. It’s not like you’d ever fight for anything else.” Why did he come here? Did he actually think he’d be able to get Eris, Queen of All Assholes, to see the point in saving her own eternal ass? Or was he just going to have to admit to himself he came here hoping she would sign up, and help him save his own ass as well as hers?

As he turned away, ready to teleport himself out of here, she said, “You could disperse him now, Bob. Why don’t you?”

He sighed. “I think he’s tied in some way to a mortal … er, a former mortal, at any rate. If I kill him, I might kill her too.”

“One person?”

“Yes.”

“So? Those creatures die every second. What is the death of one?”

“You see, this is why I want to tear down all the churches.”

Eris cocked her head to the side, like a confused parakeet, and said, “I don’t understand.”

“No, you don’t. Those creatures - many of them - like to believe in Higher Beings, but they don’t believe in us as we really are: as selfish, manipulative, and backbitin’ as all the rest of them. They should go back to worshipin’ cats; at least cats will purr for you once in a while, maybe catch a mouse chewin’ on your wiring. It’s more than they will ever get from any of our kind.”

“They are insects,” she said disdainfully.

“And you, my dear queen bee, are about to get swatted down. Don’t come to me for help; you’ve had your chance.” And with that, he teleported the hell out of there.

He materialized in one of his favorite thinking spots, a flat mesa of red rock in a really inhospitable ( as opposed to mostly inhospitable ) part of the Great Sandy Desert. The locals at a pub thirty three kilometers southwest knew him as “Odd Bob” the few times he came around. It never failed to amuse him, because that was his nickname back in the Botany Bay days - Odd Bob. He had never been anything but Odd Bob, had he? Odd as a Human, as a demon, as a so called Higher. He could never even get his act together in one area to be considered anything short of an odd duck. It was a good thing really, but sometimes it was like a grain of sand under his fingernail; a small annoyance that grew into a major pain the longer it stayed under his skin.

It was still night here, and the sky above him was spectacular. Unlike the black of Eris’s eyes, the sky was a deep indigo velvet, with thousands of bright stars shining against the dark backdrop, diamond dust. It didn’t seem as cold and distant as it had when it was being used as her representation of herself. Maybe because the sky and the stars were not really supposed to be dead things, residing in a god far too old and jaded to care much about anything beyond herself and her status quo.

He knew he shouldn’t be here. He’d left Helga in a very expensive hotel in Montreal - he promised he’d take her somewhere nice if she just let him get out of bed long enough to check something out. He was sure she was getting on fine, but he was worried about the hotel masseurs, who might not expect such a randy client - a randy client with a tail that just couldn’t leave well enough alone, or take no for an answer.

He sat down, and could feel the heat of the day still radiating up from the rock, seeping through his clothes. It was kind of soothing, and he placed his palms flat against the stone, feeling the stored energy quickly warm his hands. He was going to have to make a decision here, whether he liked it or not. Wait for Cammy to make his move and react appropriately, hoping against hope he could handle it. Or take Cammy out now, and hope he didn’t kill Jean as well. Or, the third option - hope Cammy hadn’t primed her, so when Bob attacked, he’d simply shunt his energy into her … which would mean Camaxtli had returned to the Earthly plane.

“Fuck fuck fuck,” he cursed angrily, startlingly a wallaby on the sand below. “Sorry, that wasn’t aimed at you,” he told it, before lowering his forehead to the warm rock.

This was the definition of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. He hated when these things happened. What the fuck was he going to do now?

9

She had wondered when Tom would come after her. Was he getting slower on the uptake, or had he simply had too many other things to do?

“You’re not in position,” he said, as soon as he set foot on the roof.

“I needed a drink,” she said, holding up the water bottle. She didn’t bother to turn and face him, she just continued looking down at the empty street and the construction site beyond. In spite of their stealth, she could see almost everyone in their positions, waiting calmly for their orders to engage. For the first time in a long while, she realized she hated this.

She heard him come up behind her, but pause before he got too close. He shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, then finally said, “This is about Wolverine, isn’t it?”

“What do you think,” she snapped, happy for her anger and frustration to finally have a target. “This is pointless, Tom. My god, we were routed by kids this morning - ”

“You aborted that attack,” he pointed out.

“There was a demon on site - we weren’t prepared for that.”

“You could have taken him on.”

“I am not fighting a child.”

“Even if it’s a demon?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“No. We’re prepared for the demon this time.”

“I’m not sure Xavier was lying when he claimed not to have the discs,“ she went on. “He sounded fairly sincere to me.”

“If he doesn’t have them, who does? Come on, we know he emptied Stryker’s office. But that’s not what this is about, is it?” He sat down next to her, although he didn’t even try and assume the lotus position she had, just stretched his legs out in front him until they were almost dangling off the edge of the roof. “You know Wolverine’s a traitor, Xi.”

“How can he be a traitor to a cause when he didn’t even voluntarily sign up for it?” She said, almost bored already. This was an old argument that had never come to a resolution, and yet they never did get tired of it.

“He did, a long time ago. He knew there was no leaving once he was in.”

“He signed up for Ops, an espionage group; it wasn’t the Organization, not then. They didn’t even know about mutants way back when. And who says you can’t leave? What is this, the fucking mafia?”

He sighed heavily, resting his hands on his knees. There was a glint of gold, and she was surprised to see he hadn’t taken off his wedding ring yet ( well, the metal could flash just like it did now, revealing his position ). “You know everything he did.”

“No, I don’t, and neither do you. They made up lots of false records, remember? The originals were destroyed, right along with his memory.”

“What is he to you?”

She stared at him in disbelief. “You know damn well what he is to me. He saved my life, he trained me … I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him.” She watched Koslowski get into position, and knew she shouldn’t be angry at Tom. He’d only been in the Organization for ten years, five years after Logan had disappeared. He was declared “MIA-PD” ( missing in action - presumed dead ), and the Alkali Lake complex incident was written off as a “terrorist attack”, but looking through the records, it became obvious what actually happened. The “reconditioning” Logan had gone in there for was more mind fucking and adamantium “layering”, and something had gone horribly wrong. Enough of his real self had come back to him, and he freaked out; he attacked, and since Logan was made to destroy, the result was devastating. That was her first clue not everything was right in the Organization.

But was it really her first? Xia knew she was probably lying to herself. She had seen the disparity between the Logan of record and the man she knew; she saw his slow, confusing breakdown, as the false memories and the brain washing began to erode under the steady assault of his own healing factor. She wrote it off as various things, just like they wanted her to do, but now she felt ashamed for going along with it. She could even remember Control telling her that: “You go along to get along.” Was there any attitude worse, more appalling than that?

She believed in The Organization … well, the mutant part. But it was hard to believe in something that apparently used and abused one of its own kind.

She noticed Tom twisting his ring on his finger, a nervous habit that she knew meant he was about to say something he knew he might regret. “Did you … did you sleep with him?”

“Oh, Jesus Christ. Why do you men always think it’s about sex?”

“Isn’t everything about sex?” He gave her a weak smile, obviously attempting a joke. But he realized it wasn’t enough, and looked away, a blush creeping up his neck.

Why did she expect him to understand? He grew up in New Mexico, the son of some hippie artist type who couldn’t even tell him for certain who his father was, although it never seemed to matter - his existence was comfortable, safe, even when he came out as a mutant.

She could never explain her world to him and hope he’d even begin to get it. She was one of the many unwanted, one of thousands of abandoned female babies in China, left to grow up in a squalid orphanage; the ones adopted by rich Americans were few. And if that dreary, hopeless existence was enough, she was seven years old when the Chinese government began secretly testing children for the X gene. Although she had no idea at the time, she tested positive. They knew she was a mutant long before she did.

She was told she was going to a “training school”, and that she should be honored that someone as lowly as her was chosen, but the “school” turned out to be some frightening combination of a prison and a mental institution. They were kept in cells, and she knew from the way she felt odd all the time that they were kept drugged, perhaps so they couldn’t use their powers to escape. If they knew their power; she didn’t, not for a very long time.

“Students” sometimes “graduated”, and she envied them getting out into the real world, beyond the gray cement walls and the drugged food, but she found out much later that it was a euphemism - the graduated students were ones that had been killed, because their powers were useless for the soldiers they were supposed to become, or because their powers were so extreme they were uncontrollable. Still, even death seemed like a more agreeable fate.

Then one night, she heard noises, and barely roused from a drugged sleep to hear a metal on metal noise, a noise she would realize, in retrospect, was metal claws cutting through a locking mechanism. At the time - and she had no idea why - they kept her in the dark a lot, and they had a tendency to blindfold her. That’s how she was then, blindfolded on her cot, hands tied behind her back, and she was too drugged to panic. Not that she thought it was anything more than one of their infernal, confusing tests. She heard a man ask her, in perfect Cantonese ( and that was the weird thing - he spoke it without a Canadian accent. She still, to this day, had no idea how he managed that ), if she was all right, if she could walk, and she didn’t answer him immediately because she didn’t recognize his voice; being blindfolded and kept in the dark so much, she had learned to recognize all of them by sound alone. He then asked her why she was blindfolded, and she had to admit she had no idea - that was just the way it was.

Only when he took her blindfold off, and her eyes had a chance to adjust to light once more, did she see he was a white man, strangely hairy ( although, back then, he was mostly clean shaven - it was just thick stubble ), and she thought maybe she should start panicking. There were no whites here; there had never been non-Asians here at all. She didn’t understand what the hell was going on now.

Nor did she understand the bodies in the hallway, the blood … she kept thinking it was a test, but one she couldn’t hope to understand. Maybe she was supposed to fight him. But how could she? First of all, the drugs were still heavy in her blood, and because she’d been trying to avoid the drugs as much as possible, she skipped eating for as long as she could, so she was probably all of ninety eight pounds. And he was big; to her, he seemed massive, his chest broad enough that two of her standing abreast wouldn’t be as wide as him. That was probably an exaggeration, but not much of one.

She tried to keep up with him, follow him out ( she couldn’t believe she was leaving; it had to be a trick ), but at some point she collapsed. She didn’t even remember doing that, not until she felt him pick her up and carry her, like she was nothing to him ( and that was undoubtedly true - Logan was always very strong ). She heard him speaking to someone else, but she knew very little English then, and couldn’t follow it. But when the cold air hit her face - night air, slightly misty from a previous rain, smelling of damp concrete and earth, auto exhaust and gunpowder - she felt like crying, but didn’t have the strength. Was she really outside? Did she finally make it outside? She wanted to look at the sky, but her eyelids were too heavy to open.

He was still speaking English to someone else, but most of it was drowned in a loud noise that seemed to come with a very strong wind - later, she would realize it was the rotors of a helicopter. He got inside something, set her down, and sat beside her, still speaking English to someone, but then he switched back to Cantonese to ask her if she was okay. She made a noise that was most likely agreement, and asked him where they were going. He told her “As far away from this fucking dungeon as Humanly possible,” and since this sounded good to her, she just nodded - or tried to, at least. She started shivering violently - the outdoors was not temperature controlled, and neither was the helicopter, apparently - and she heard a woman’s voice, perhaps the one Logan had been speaking to, as she spoke English with a sort of singsong lilt ( eventually, she would come to know her as Static/Sloane, a frequent partner of Logan’s ). She knew enough English to be aware that Logan had told her “No” about something, and then he put something over her, something warm that smelled of body heat, leather, cigars, and just faintly of blood. It was his coat, which seemed big enough to her to be a blanket, and she lost consciousness soon after, or fell asleep - with so many drugs in her system, it was hard to tell the difference between the two.

She drifted in and out of consciousness several times during the trip, and only later, when she recalled some of those fragmented images, did she realize she basically fell asleep on Logan, her head on his thigh. But rather than move her he simply lived with it ( there wasn’t a lot of room in the chopper anyways ) until they landed in what she would eventually realize was a secluded area inside South Korea. She recalled him carrying her out, and then he started barking orders in both English and Korean ( she knew about as much Korean as she did English ), and it was only years later, during a late night drinking session after a successful mission, that Static would tell her that Logan had saved her life. Apparently the field commander had decided, since she was in such obviously poor health and they had taken on many more mutants than intel had anticipated, that she left behind or killed outright, as surely the Chinese authorities would execute her anyways. Logan, technically the on site mission commander, overrode the decision, saying she was going out on evac with him and Static. His exact quote was, “No one gets left behind.”

According to Static, Logan was always “hopelessly strange”. “He’s the only assassin I know who reads poetry,” she said, laughing.

Perhaps as “punishment” for taking her out in spite of orders, Logan was assigned to oversee her rehabilitation and training. But if he resented her he never showed it. He even helped teach her to speak English, and he made it really easy since he spoke Cantonese as well. She would soon discover he was fluent in almost every language you could name, and even he wasn’t sure how.

That should have been her first clue something was wrong.

That, and the fact that Logan - Wolverine - was generally spoke of with great fear and awe; he was a living legend among the others in the Organization, fearless, ruthless, and not a man you ever wanted to be on the bad side of. And yet, she had seen those strangely noble and gentle gestures ( refusing to leave her behind, giving her his coat, treating her with such obvious kindness ), and couldn’t quite reconcile them with a savage killer. It was that dichotomy - the Logan that should have been, and the Logan that was - that would eventually widen the rifts in his memory, and cause them to fly apart. Why the Organization thought they could constantly “clean slate” him, even with his healing factor, was a total mystery to her. And here she considered herself a friend, and she didn’t even realize they were completely fucking him over until his very last days.

After a mindfucking he’d be strange, forgetful and irritable, or sometimes as placid as a zombie if it was a really thorough job. Static would attribute it to his “mood swings” - and certainly he could be a very emotional, grumpy guy - or the way he was whenever he lost a training session, but that rang false somehow. She discovered the truth the night before he was sent to the Alkali Lake for some new “counterintelligence” training. He slipped a mysterious hand written note in her coat pocket that simply read “Roman’s Grill, eleven thirty”.

It didn’t take her long to find out that Roman’s Grill was a kind of sleazy diner in a really dangerous section of Washington D.C., but that was why he chose it - anyone from the Organization who chose to follow either one of them would stick out like a sore thumb. Not that anyone she knew of could follow Logan successfully; he was simply too aware, his senses too primed. Logan once quoted a writer to her. She couldn’t remember his name ( Ellis? ), but the quote was: “Paranoia is just having all the facts.” He lived his life like that, even though, apparently, it wasn’t his life at all.

She could remember that night like it was yesterday, even though it was about sixteen years ago now. He was sitting in a back booth, back to the wall, facing the front door and the grease and smoke grimed window like a man expecting an armed attack at any moment. Perhaps he was.

He wore his facial hair differently then, but he looked remarkably the same as he did now, judging from the surveillance photos. He’d ordered her something that looked frighteningly greasy, but judging from the messy plate shoved off to the side, he’d had something similar before she’d showed up ( she wasn’t that late ). He didn’t waste a lot of time getting down to business; he never did.

“After I check out Alkali Lake, I’m goin’,” he said, his voice a murmur beneath the loud voices and loud and r&b issuing from a radio in the kitchen.

She was sure she had missed something. “Going? Going where?”

He shrugged, and did a surreptitious scan of the room. “I don’t know,” he replied, in perfect Cantonese. It was doubtful anyone here could speak Chinese. “But … they took my mind, you see? I’ve been trying to find out who I am, but … I think they’re starting to suspect something. Maybe I said too much to Sloane, I don’t know, but I’m starting to feel the noose tighten, you know? I have to get out while I still can.”

“They took your mind?” She thought perhaps it was the best way he could say it in the language, but it gave her a chill. At the time, she thought it was just being in that place, full of loud Americans and cigarette smoke ( it was probably the last restaurant in America that allowed smoking ), but in retrospect, she would identify that reaction for what it was - recognition.

“They took everything, my whole life,” he said, with a breathless laugh. He ran a hand through his hair, and she realized with a jolt he was distraught. “I thought I could make them … I thought I could find a way to get it back. But I don’t know who I am, Xi. I always wake up thinking I’m some place other than I am, and sometimes I scare myself when I look in a mirror, ‘cause I don’t recognize myself. I … I can’t do this anymore; I can’t pretend to be what they want me to be.”

She knew the Organization was suspicious at best, and megalomaniacal at worst, but she knew of the “mutant underground” operating within it; she knew the plan to make the world safer and better for mutants. She understood that and agreed, and it allowed her to do things on their behalf that she felt counterproductive to the mutant cause, because she knew that it would eventually be nullified: the mundane were stupid and fearful creatures who reacted before they thought. It would be easy to get what they wanted from them.

But until that very moment in time, it had never occurred to her that there were mutants who weren’t with the Organization voluntarily.

“What … why are you telling me this?” She finally asked, trying not to show how shaken she was. She knew some mutants would hurt other mutants, but she had no idea it was happening right under her nose.

“Because I want you to come with me,” he said, as if he knew it was silly but he couldn’t help it. He reached across cigarette burned table and put his hand over hers; she remembered that his palm was warm but his fingers were cold. “You remind me of someone.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. But sometimes I look at you, and I think I knew … I knew someone like you, once, a long time ago. And I brought you into this, Xia; I should help you get out.”

He would never know - just like Tom would never understand - that he was her hero, and always would be. He brought her - a doomed sixteen year old girl - back out into the world again; he let her see the sky. But the Organization took care of her, gave her a place and a purpose; it was the family she never had. She had a secretive life, yes, occasionally a bloody one, but she was well taken care of, and unlike other mutants, she didn’t have to live in fear. She was safe with them. But at that moment in time, she felt completely torn - her hero or her family. Her screwed up, amnesiac hero or her lying, treacherous family. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so sad. “I can’t,” she had told him, feeling on the verge of tears for the first time in a long while. “I don’t want to go out there, into the world.” And she didn’t; she wasn’t ready for it, and it had never been hers.

He squeezed her hand reassuringly. “I’ll take care of you,” he whispered, reverting to English. The worst part of that was he meant it.

She shook her head, and aware that she was going to start crying and didn’t want to do it in front of him, she got up, stealing her hand from beneath his. She saw the heartbroken look on his face, and it made something in her chest clench, a muscle she didn’t know she had, and it hurt. “I won’t come after you,” she told him, which she thought was probably the best thing she could say. “I’ll never find you.” And with that, she ran out of the diner, and never saw Logan again.

Until now, of course, in still frame photographs and security footage. The slight change in facial hair was the only visible difference in his outward physiognomy; he was still the same man she left in the diner sixteen years ago. If he could remember her, he wouldn’t recognizer her now - then, she was a still naïve twenty year old girl. Now she was thirty five and as jaded as they came, married to Tom here, for better or worse. And lately, it had all been worse.

Tom’s communicator crackled, and she heard Harris say, “Visual confirm on eagle. Moving to target.”

He pulled his comm off his arm, and responded, “Confirm.” Eagle was the code name for Xavier and his people. As Tom put the comm back, he climbed to his feet, and held a hand down towards her. “I’m gonna need you in position, Atomic.”

She sighed, and grabbed his hand, allowing him to help her stand up. The bitterest irony of them all was she was assigned to take out Weapon X - Logan - if he showed up. She could; her power allowed her to hurt Logan, and he couldn’t even touch her. It was why they kept her in the dark back in China; her body was like a solar battery, and she could channel the energy it stored into a type of “force field” that covered her from head to toe. It was impervious to all physical objects, and so far any other weapon they threw at her; it was theorized she could survive in the vacuum of space as long as she had her field up. It was repulsive too, much like hitting a charged electric fence, and she could use it as a weapon when she hit people. It was Logan who taught her how to use it as a weapon, in fact. And now she was going to have to use that knowledge against him.

That wasn’t the worst thing, though. The worst thing was she lied to him - she said she’d never come after him, and here she finally had - and yet he would never know.

At least, if she was going to have to try to kill him, he could know why.