The click of the enter key on Yuriko's console echoed through the silent, subterranean laboratory.
For a second nothing happened. Then, the blue rings of energy holding Logan's wrists and ankles began to stutter.
VZZZT—SPARK—VZZZT.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: KINETIC TETHERS COMPROMISED]
[MAGNETIC FREQUENCY: RECALIBRATING]
[MUTANT PHYSIQUE LEVEL 3: ENGAGING FULL OUTPUT]
"Now, Logan!" Yuriko hissed, her back still stiffly turned toward him, her hands trembling on the edge of the console.
Liam didn't need her to tell him twice. With a guttural, anger filled growl, Logan flexed his massive forearms and pulled inward.
The energy rings flared violently, throwing off blinding white sparks and without their steady magnetic frequency, they couldn't anchor his weight. The metal bonds groaned under the sudden, immense strain of his strength.
CRACK-SHATTER!
The energy rings broke apart into harmless static. Logan dropped from mid-air, landing heavily on his feet in a classic three-point predator crouch. The floor buckled slightly under the impact of his adamantium-laced skeleton.
SNIKT!
The six silver claws extended instantly, humming with a terrifying, orange-hot glow as his Hot Claws skill ignited. He stood up, steam rising from his bare torso, his chest heaving as his accelerated regeneration burned through the last microscopic traces of the paralyzing agent.
He took a step toward Yuriko, but a sharp, agonizing gasp from her stopped him mid step.
Yuriko collapsed against the console, her hands clutching the back of her neck. A sickening, high-frequency BZZZZ sound emanated from the base of her skull. The cybernetic control chip implanted by Stryker had detected her going against orders. Her body went completely rigid, her eyes rolling back as currents of agonizing electricity forced her to her knees.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"
"Yuriko!" Logan moved to rush to her side.
"No!" she choked out, her teeth grinding together so hard a trickle of blood ran down her chin. "Go... Logan. Sector 4... down the central lift... before the security grid... locks down. If you stay... they... they will force me to kill you!!!!"
Logan's jaw tightened. He hated leaving her like this. His conscious screamed that a hero shouldn't leave a comrade behind, but he knew she was right. If he tried to perform makeshift brain surgery to dig the chip out right now, Stryker's entire army would descend on this room and freeze them both. Not to mention he has no idea how to even perform sugery.
"I'll come back for you," Logan said, his voice like grinding stones. "I swear."
She didn't answer, her body convulsing as the chip forced her into a temporary neural shutdown. Logan turned on his heel and sprinted toward the shattered doorway, a blur of muscle and glowing metal.
The corridors of Alkali Lake were a maze of grey concrete and reinforced steel. The moment Logan stepped out, the facility's automated defenses reacted.
WEE-WOO-WEE-WOO-WEE-WOO!
Alarm were triggered instantly, bathing the hallways in a pulsing, bloody crimson light. Overhead, heavy steel blast doors began to slide downward from the ceiling, threatening to seal him into a containment zone.
"Not today, bub," Logan snarled.
He slid beneath the first dropping door just as it slammed shut, the steel scraping against his back. He kept his momentum, sprinting at a pace that surpassed thirty miles an hour. His enhanced senses were a radar. He could smell the ozone of the automated turrets ahead.
Two ceiling-mounted, quad-barrel miniguns dropped from the panels fifty yards down the hall, their barrels spinning with a high-pitched mechanical whine.
RAT-A-TAT-A-TAT-A-TAT!
The bullets tore through the concrete walls, as they fired at him. Logan didn't stop. He threw himself into a low, tactical dive, sliding across the smooth floor. He crossed his arms in front of his face.
The high-caliber rounds slammed into his forearms.
CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!
The bullets flattened instantly tore through his skin and muscle covering his arms in blood and sparked against his adamantium bones,. But his regeneration was already knitting the muscle fibers back together before the blood could even pool on the floor.
Logan bounced back to his feet, leaped off the side of the wall, and launched himself into the air toward the first turret. He spun like a buzzsaw, his glowing orange claws carving through the armored housing of the gun like it was warm butter.
"GRAAAAAAAAAH!!!!"
SHR-KKKXT!
The minigun exploded in a shower of sparks and black smoke. Before he hit the ground, Logan kicked off the ceiling, thrusting himself forward to plunge his claws directly into the camera lens of the second turret, ripping it completely out of its mountings.
He landed fluidly, his claws dripping with melted wiring and hydraulic fluid.
He followed the scent of Dr. Banner's gamma-enriched blood, but as he rounded the corner into a massive, glass-walled observation theater, a different scent reached his nose. It was the smell of formaldehyde, old parchment, and a sickeningly familiar brand of hair pomade.
Inside the lab, surrounded by massive glowing centrifuges and rows of chemical vats, was a middle-aged man in a white lab coat. He had thin, wire-rimmed glasses and a bald head, his face twisted into an expression of frantic, obsessive concentration as he adjusted the valves on a massive genetic hybridization matrix.
Dr. Abraham Cornelius. The twisted medical genius who had overseen the physical bonding of the adamantium to Logan's skeleton all those years ago.
"The genetic sequencing is slipping!" Cornelius shouted into his headset, completely oblivious to the chaos outside. "Stryker, the Gamma markers from Banner are rejecting the mutant cellular baseline! We need the Wolverine's bone marrow now, or the Weapon H matrix will collapse into a cellular decay!"
"You ain't getting a single drop, doc," a voice growled from the shattered glass doorway.
Cornelius spun around, his face draining of all color. He dropped his clipboard, the papers scattering across the sterile floor. "You... you're free? How? The tethers were foolproof!"
Logan walked into the lab, his claws extended, the heat radiating from them causing the air to shimmer. "There ain't nothing foolproof when it comes to me, Cornelius. Now, you're gonna turn off those machines, and you're gonna tell me exactly how to wake up Banner."
Cornelius backed away, his hands raised, his eyes darting toward the security console behind him. "Logan... please, listen to reason. You are looking at this through the narrow lens of personal grievance! Weapon H... it's the future of global defense! We can end wars before they start! Imagine a soldier that cannot die, that possesses the strength to move mountains, guided by a disciplined tactical mind!"
"I don't give a damn about your science projects," Logan spat, stepping closer. The smell of fear rolling off the doctor was suffocating. "All I see is a bunch of old men playing God and breaking lives to do it. Shut it down!!"
"I can't!" Cornelius cried, his voice hitting a panicked, hysterical pitch. "The process has already entered its preliminary phase! The extraction lines are connected to Sector 4! If I abort the sequence manually from here, the feedback loop will flood Banner's chamber with pure, concentrated neurotoxins! He will die in agony, Logan!"
Logan's eyes narrowed. He sniffed the air, checking the doctor's heart rate. It was hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird, but the scent didn't change. He wasn't lying. The machine was a trap.
Suddenly, a monitor on the main wall flared to life. Stryker's face appeared, his expression dark and furious.
"Dr. Cornelius, step away from the console," Stryker commanded through the speakers. "Subject Wolverine is a lost cause for cooperation. Activate the localized sterilization protocol for that laboratory."
Cornelius's eyes widened in horror. "Colonel? No! I am still inside!"
"Your sacrifice will be noted in the official records, Abraham," Stryker replied coldly. "Weapon H will be completed with or without your hands on the dials."
CLICK.
The screen went black. A mechanical voice echoed from the ceiling: Localized sterilization initiated. Thermal purge in T-minus ten seconds.
"The floor vents!" Cornelius screamed, completely losing his mind as he ran toward the reinforced exit doors, only to find them magnetically locked. "It's superheated napalm! It will vaporize everything!"
Logan didn't waste a second. He rushed to the central console—a massive pillar of glowing green tubes and computer monitors. He brought his claws down in a brutal, diagonal slash.
SHRA-KKKKT!
The adamantium claws, sheared through the hardened steel casing, severing the primary power conduits. The green fluid exploded outward, soaking the floor as the monitors shattered.
"Come here!" Logan grabbed Cornelius by the collar of his lab coat with one hand, lifting the doctor completely off his feet.
"The glass!" Cornelius pointed a shaking finger at the thick, multi-layered observation window overlooking the lower levels. "It's reinforced ballistic plexiglass! Even a missile won't break it!"
"Watch me," Logan growled.
He sprinted toward the window, dragging Cornelius along like a ragdoll. He pulled his right fist back, his claws glowing intense, white-hot. He poured every ounce of his strength into the strike.
BOOOOOOM!
The impact was deafening. The booming echo of his claws piercing straight through hardened plexiglass, followed by his fist creating a massive spiderweb of cracks before the entire twelve-inch-thick window shattered into a million glittering shards. Echoed all across the room.
Logan leaped through the opening, plunging down three stories into the lower corridor just as the lab above them erupted into a roaring inferno of bright orange napalm.
They hit the concrete below. Logan absorbed the impact easily, his reinforced skeleton taking the brunt of the shock. He dropped Cornelius onto the floor, the doctor gasping and coughing from the smoke.
"Sector 4. Which way?" Logan demanded, pinning Cornelius with a foot to his chest.
"Through... through the automated assembly line," Cornelius wheezed, pointing down a dark, massive industrial tunnel to their right. "The central lift is at the end. Please... don't leave me here, Logan."
Logan looked up at the blaring alarms, then down at the broken man who had helped create his nightmare. "You stay here. If I survive this, maybe I'll come back and let the cops handle you. If not... well, hope you like smoke."
Logan turned and sprinted into the industrial tunnel, leaving the doctor weeping in the dark.
The assembly line was a vast, multi-tiered chamber filled with robotic arms, conveyor belts, and massive hydraulic presses. It was completely dark, save for the pulsing red emergency lights.
Logan slowed his pace, his ears twitching. The scent of gunpowder and rotting flesh was suddenly overwhelming.
Swoosh.
A faint whistle in the air was the only warning he got. Logan instinctively tilted his head back.
A gleaming steel katana blade sliced through the air, missing his nose by a fraction of an inch.
Logan leaped backward, landing on a moving conveyor belt. Standing on a platform above him, silhouetted against the red light, was Deadpool. He was holding two katanas, his red-and-black mask tilting in a mocking gesture.
"Missed me, missed me, now you gotta kiss me!" Wade sang out, dropping down from the platform and landing on the conveyor belt with perfect agility. "Gotta hand it to you, Wolvie, breaking out of those zero-point bonds? Classic protagonist behavior. The readers are absolutely loving this pacing right now. You know what they'd love more, some me and you action."
"Move aside, Wade," Logan growled, his claws snapping out. "I don't have time for your nonsense."
"Oh, I'd love to, really," Wade said, spinning his swords into a defensive guard. "But the Colonel promised me that if I help bring you in, he'll look into fixing this whole 'my skin looks like a topography map of Utah' situation. Plus, my contract says I need at least one high-budget action sequence per chapter. So, let's dance, peanut!"
Wade lunged forward, his swords becoming a blur of silver steel.
CLANG! CHING! CLANG!
The blades clashed against Logan's adamantium claws in a rapid-fire of sparks. Wade was fast—unnaturally fast—his movements unpredictable and chaotic. He sliced at Logan's legs, flipped over his head, and delivered a spinning kick to Logan's back, sending him stumbling forward onto a hydraulic press line.
"Come on, Jimmy! Use that Berserk Rage! Give the people what they paid for!" Wade taunted, drawing a pair of submachine guns from his holsters in a split second.
RAT-A-TAT-A-TAT-A-TAT!
A hail of bullets peppered Logan's chest. Logan roared through the pain, ignoring the flesh wounds as they healed instantly. He charged through the gunfire, a juggernaut of muscle and metal. He slammed into Wade, tackling him off the conveyor belt and down into a massive pit filled with discarded scrap metal.
They crashed into the iron fragments with a deafening CRUNCH.
Logan recovered first, pinning Wade down and bringing his glowing claws down toward the mercenary's face. Wade countered, jamming the hilts of his katanas between Logan's claws, holding the searing hot metal inches from his eyes. The heat began to singe Wade's mask, the fabric smoking.
"Whoa, SPICY! Literally!" Wade gasped, his arms straining against Logan's strength. "You've been lifting, haven't you? What's your routine? Is it just pure unadulterated angst?"
"Shut up!" Logan screamed.
He shifted his weight, using his superior leverage to snap the steel blades of Wade's katanas with a sharp SNAP. Before Wade could react, Logan drove his claws forward, pinning Wade's tactical vest directly to a massive, iron I-beam behind him.
Wade let out a sharp grunt as the six blades impaled him, locking him securely to the metal structure.
"Aw, man, this was my favorite suit," Wade groaned, his head slumping forward. He looked up at Logan, his masked eyes blinking. "Look, I'm just gonna hang out here and regenerate my dignity for a bit. Go ahead. Sector 4 is straight ahead. Watch out for the big furry guy and the Russian. They don't have my charming personality."
Logan ripped his claws free, leaving Wade pinned to the beam by the sheer weight of the scrap metal he'd wedged around him. "Don't follow me, Wade."
"Wouldn't dream of it, sugarplum! Good luck with the final boss!" Wade called out as Logan disappeared into the shadows of the lift mechanism.
The central lift was a massive, industrial platform suspended by thick steel cables over a deep, dark shaft that descended into the deepest parts of the mountain.
Logan stepped onto the platform, his senses instantly screaming at maximum volume.
The air was heavy, freezing, and dead. The scent of Carbonadium was so thick it coated his throat like ash.
THUD.
A massive weight landed on the far side of the lift platform, causing the steel cables to groan and sway over the abyss.
Out of the red shadow stepped Victor Creed. His eyes were completely bloodshot, a wild, feral grin splitting his face as he bared his long fangs. His massive hands were curled into talons, the skin of his forearms thick and matted with dark hair.
"End of the line, Jimmy," Victor rumbled, his voice shaking the metal beneath their feet. "No more running. No more X-Men to save your pathetic hide. Just you and me. Like the old days."
From the ceiling above, dropping down with a heavy, metallic clang, came Omega Red. His red eyes burned with a parasitic fury, his long blonde hair whipping in the draft of the shaft. His armor was humming, the ports on his wrists opening to release the long, coiled Carbonadium tendrils.
"You will not escape this time, Wolverine," Arkady hissed. "The Colonel has authorized me to take your life force down to the absolute brink. I will leave you with just enough breath to bleed for the machines."
Logan stood his ground in the center of the platform. He was outnumbered, outgunned, and his healing factor was already under threat from the sheer presence of the Carbonadium. But Liam thought of Bruce—the terrified scientist who had spent his life trying to help people, only to be turned into a tool of destruction. He thought of Rogue, Storm and Jean, of the people who needed him in this new life. He wouldn't let these monsters win.
"You want a piece of me?" Logan growled, his claws igniting into a brilliant, blinding white-hot flare, his Berserk Rage fully activating.
"CONE AND GET IT! HRAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!"
Victor roared, a sound of pure, unadulterated savagery, and launched himself forward on all fours. He hit Logan like a battering ram, his long claws digging into Logan's shoulders, driving him back toward the edge of the platform.
At the same instant, Omega Red lashed out.
WHIP-CRACK!
The Carbonadium tendrils wrapped around Logan's left leg and neck, the cold metal instantly burning into his flesh, sending a wave of toxic lethality through his bloodstream.
[SYSTEM ALERT: MULTIPLE TARGET ENGAGEMENT]
[CARBONADIUM TOXICITY ENHANCED: REGENERATION LIFTED TO 50% DEBUFF]
[BERSERK RAGE ACTIVE: DAMAGE OUTPUT INCREASED BY 40%]
Logan screamed, a sound of pure agony and fury. He brought his right hand down, slicing his orange-hot claws directly across Victor's face.
SHR-KKKXT!
The adamantium carved deep tracks across Sabretooth's cheek and nose, smoke rising from the wounds as the heat cauterized the flesh. Victor howled in pain, but the injury only made him more feral. He bit down directly on Logan's shoulder, his fangs sinking into the muscle, trying to tear the throat out.
Logan gripped Victor by the throat with his left hand, his claws digging into his brother's neck. "Get... off... me!"
With a massive surge of strength, he spartan kicked Victor away. But before he could recover, Omega Red pulled the tendrils taut. Logan was yanked off his feet, his back slamming violently into the steel floor of the lift.
Arkady stepped closer, his face twisting into a sick smile as he began to drain Logan's life force through the coils. Logan felt his muscles weaken, his vision blurring at the edges as the pale Russian grew stronger, his skin flushing with vibrant life.
"Yes... collapse, little wolf," Arkady cheered.
I can't lose here, Liam's mind screamed through the static of the drain. Think! The environment! The lift cables!
Logan looked up through his blurry vision at the massive, thick steel cables holding the platform suspended over the abyss. If he couldn't break the coils with brute strength, he would use physics.
Logan rolled onto his stomach, dragging the weight of Omega Red's tendrils with him. He lunged toward the main suspension cable on the left side of the lift. He raised both hands, his claws glowing with the absolute maximum output of his Hot Claws skill.
"ARKADY! CATCH!" Logan roared.
He slashed through the massive steel cable.
TWANG-BOOOM!
The thick cable snapped with the force of a small explosion, whipping wildly through the air like a metallic whip. The lift platform instantly tilted at a terrifying forty-five-degree angle, sliding down the shaft as the remaining cables struggled to hold the weight.
Victor, who was just rushing back into the fray, lost his footing, sliding across the metal floor toward the edge of the abyss. He barely managed to dig his claws into the grating to hold himself over the drop.
Omega Red was thrown off balance, his grip on the tendrils loosening for a split second.
That was all Logan needed.
With his regeneration briefly surging back as the drain faltered, Logan bounded up the tilted slope of the platform. He dove at Omega Red, wrapping his arms around the giant Russian's waist.
"Let's see how well you fly, Arkady!" Logan growled.
He drove them both toward the edge of the tilting lift. Omega Red's eyes widened in genuine terror as he realized what Logan was doing. He tried to retract his tentacles to anchor himself, but it was too late.
Logan slammed Omega Red over the edge, into the dark, empty void of the elevator shaft.
"WOLVERINE!" Arkady screamed, his voice fading rapidly as he plummeted down into the hundreds of feet of black emptiness below.
Logan managed to grab the edge of the tilted platform with one hand, his adamantium claws digging into the steel support beam. He hung there, his chest heaving, his body covered in blood, sweat, and soot.
A shadow fell over him.
Logan looked up. Victor Creed was standing at the top of the tilted platform, his face covered in blood from Logan's previous strike. He looked down at Logan with an expression of pure, unadulterated hatred. He raised his massive boot, preparing to stomp on Logan's fingers and send him down into the dark after Arkady.
"Goodbye, Jimmy," Victor sneered.
But Logan didn't blink. He reached up with his free hand, grabbed Victor's ankle, and pulled with everything he had left.
"If I'm going to hell, Victor," Logan growled, "you're coming with me!"
"NO!" Victor roared as his footing vanished.
He fell over the edge, tumbling into the void. But as he fell, he managed to grab a secondary structural cable thirty feet below, his massive weight causing the wire to swing wildly as he cursed Logan's name into the dark.
Logan pulled himself back onto the platform, his body screaming in protest. Every muscle fiber was exhausted, his healing factor working overtime to repair the massive trauma of the fight. But he was alive. He had won the gauntlet.
The lift slowly ground to a halt at the lowest level of the facility. The doors in front of him were labeled in large, stark white lettering: SECTOR 4: HYBRIDIZATION CHAMBER.
Logan stood up, wiping the blood from his brow. His claws retracted with a weary clack. He took a deep, steadying breath, his senses locking onto the pure, unmitigated scent of gamma radiation ahead.
He pushed the heavy blast doors open.
The chamber was massive, dominated by a towering glass cylinder filled with bubbling green fluid. Inside the cylinder, suspended by chains, was Bruce Banner. But the extraction lines were glowing bright crimson, a thick, dark fluid pumping from Logan's previous destruction of the lab, threatening to flood the tank with the neurotoxins.
Standing at the main control console, his hand resting on the emergency execution lever, was Colonel William Stryker. He looked at Logan, his expression a mixture of profound disappointment and cold, murderous resolve.
"You're too late, Logan," Stryker said, his voice echoing through the massive chamber. "The matrix is broken, but the blood is already in the tubes. If you take one step closer, I pull this lever, and Dr. Banner dies, then his other half will awaken and destroy everything. I'm certain you can already tell what will happen then, I may die but so will you and thousands of others."