The Wild Hunt - Across the Tiber

[x-dominion.livejournal.com]

The hunters become the hunted as the Tiber Complex's secret is revealed.



The attack had been shatteringly quick. Kane cradled his torn-apart left arm in the right as he sped up the path. Already, he could hear the howls of wolves coming down from the mountains, converging on the area. They were being driven, but that didn't matter. The man and the woman were too powerful in the open. Only Logan's adamantium skeleton had caused them to pause long enough for Wade's charges to buy them time to run.

Kane had already hit the crash button on his cell, sending the alert signal to the X-Men. It would take them time to get here, illegally or not, and they needed a place that cut down the natural advantages of their foes; boxed them in and slowed them down to the point they had a fighting chance. Only the training facility was close enough to offer any kind of defensive position, which had them running for it. With his speed, Kane reached the entrance first. The door was heavy steel, but someone had already done them the favour of cracking the security panel, and it slid open easily.

"Come on! Inside!" He yelled, holding it open with his hip while he fumbled for his gun. Even buying a few seconds might be the key between life and death.

How he got from outside to inside didn't stick with Kyle. He wouldn't remember Kane's shouted order later, he just knew that he'd been outside outside, cold and angry and his skin burned with healing wounds, and then he was inside, still cold and angry and burning, and panting with exertion as if he'd thrown himself through the open doorway ahead of something. He spun on his feet to go back out, and was stopped only by the sounds of Logan and Wade reaching the doorway.

Wade half-stumbled, half-skidded through the door, already in the process of turning. He landed on his side and began firing both handguns at the blurred figure coming at Logan from the left.

Coming in directly behind him, North lept clear over Wade’s gun and instinctively pulled Kyle further back into the room with him as he reached for the bullet cartridges lining his belt. He had stopped bothering about his guns earlier when the last round had run out – merely slammed them back into their holsters so that he could focus on breathing, dodging and getting the fuck out of the line of attack with Wade in front and Logan behind him, practically acting as his shields. Even for him, the vision of getting eaten by ferals was a hard one to shake.

Logan was bleeding from dozens of wounds all over his body, the majority sliced down to the bone, as he ran toward the facility door on all fours. He was light headed with blood loss while his healing factor struggled to deal. He was only still alive because of the adamantium WeaponX had laced his skeleton with. That's some fucking irony for you. He careened through the door, almost tripping over Wade, before he dug a claw into the floor to turn himself around. He yanked Kane out of the doorway then body slammed the door closed before slumping against it breathing hard.

"Fucking fuck" Kyle had attempted to slide out of the way of the German spy and had somehow managed to get himself into more of a position to get snagged and dragged. "Is that door gonna last? Now what?" Steel or not, he was just assuming the worst. They were so fucked. "The hell -are- those guys?"

"I guess we met the last test subjects. Jesus, I've never seen a feral move that fast. I'm jacked up enough that I can sometimes catch individual raindrops, and all I saw was a fucking blur." Kane hissed as the omni-skin on his arm started to knit together. It would stiffen up, acting like a natural cast while the muscle healed underneath.

North hummed in agreement, eyes darting down to the his cracked watch display. “I can slow down my visions if you want a more detailed description. But that is hardly helpful and cuts down on the warning time.” As it were, his visions mostly blurred pictures of motion and the quicksilver shifting of possibilities that came with trying to pinpoint an animal’s thought process. There was a loud thud from beyond the door and the sound of nails against metal, and the German spy shook his head to dislodge the discomfiting sound from his head. “We cannot meet them head on. Not with what we have. And that door is not going to hold up forever.”

"Don't slow down your visions," Wade said, then grunted as he pushed himself up off the floor and checked the mags in his handguns. "Any warning's better than none." Turning, Wade checked their surrounding as another thud echoed from beyond the door. "Don't know about the door, but we should keep going, see if there's another way out while they're distracted here. Kane, you have the schematics for this place in your brain?"

Kane shook his head. "Director said that the plans had been classified and lost in the archives. It's going to be trial and error-"

Kane was cut off by a moan, and in the far corner, a man fell heavily to his knees. His hands clutched his midsection, and blood seeped out from around his fingers.

While the rest of them had been talking, Logan had shifted so his back was against the door. It kept shifting and vibrating against his back under the constant attack of the ferals, holding out for now. They were in sorry shape. Covered in blood and sweat, weapons and powers useless, with backup a long way away, clusterfuck didn't even begin to cover it. The not pretty had started back in the clearing and it was only getting uglier. They didn't have time for guessing. "Where's a computer hacker when you need one," he muttered.

His head jerked up and he'd already taken several steps toward the man, claws out, before it registered he didn't pose a threat. He hurried the rest of the way to the man then knelt beside him. A grim look appeared on his face as he pressed his own hands to the wound. Logan called over his shoulder, "North, ya got a first aid kit?"

“No.” And let it be noted that there was not much remorse in North’s negative reply.

The growl that came out of Kyle was startlingly loud. "He's one of the Weapon X shits." He took a halting step towards the man, and then stopped still, flexing his fingers. "I did everything you shits told me to, and you killed my fucking mom. Did you kill her before they got to her? She's a nurse. She never hurt anyone, she didn't do anything to you people, what the fuck did you have to kill her for?"

"Bait. She was... his bait." The man gasped out.

"Shit," Wade muttered, pulling a miniature first aid kit out of one of his many pockets as he stepped between Kyle and the Weapon-X guy. Despite the rough shape he was in, he held it up between two fingers and wiggled it a little. "Did the little doc-y wok-y get scratched up? Be a good invalid and tell us which 'he' Mrs. Gibney was bait for and maybe I'll give you a bandaid. Not that it'll do much good. I'm pretty sure that's some intestine I see between your fingers."

"Romulus. He's a feral. He's... the feral. Apex predator. Never seen anything like him. His cellular structure combined with his healing factor and the protean nature of the Thetagen was the only thing that could properly stabilize Arkady's body's reaction to the carbonadium." He groaned as the blood seeped around his fingers. "The samples in the lab here were too old to be of any use. Arkady decided it was the best way to draw them out."

Logan now had a name to put one of the ferals, not that it did him much good. It wasn't going to matter if they didn't make it out of here. They needed intel. Anything that might help them survive until they got their asses saved by back up. "So why's there two of 'em and what the hell did ya do to piss 'em off so much?"

"Nothing. This is their territory. It's why the research lab was abandoned in the first place." He let out a shuddering breath. "Originally, they used it to train ferals in the WEAPONX program. But Romulus eventually imprinted on the area with his mate and drove people off. The other one was used as a brood mare by the program. That's how Gibney was perfect to lure them in."

"The fuck?" Kyle was not following that. Or he hoped he wasn't, because it sounded like he was perfect because of some kind of connect to the 'brood mare' which was a fucked up term in the first place. "What the fuck? So the super feral dude and there's a super feral ...lady and what, they live here, and..." he shook his head several times, rubbed at his face and then abruptly sat down on the ground in shock. "Fucking lie to me, tell me anything but why I'm perfect as a lure." Except he had to know.

North could hazard a guess or two, but the marksman kept quiet and holstered his guns against his better judgment as he squatted by Cornelius’ side, across from Wade. The spy prodded the doctor in the cheek when no answer was forthcoming from lips twisted in pain, before shrugging and reaching for a needle and thread that had been secreted about his person… somewhere. “Best speak up. Two mad men are patching you up.”

Wade was only half listening to the group around him, most of his attention trained on the doctor. Well, the doctor and the doctor's intestines, which the mercenary was attempting to push back where they were supposed to go. "Nobody likes intestines," he muttered. "I mean, unless you're Scottish and you like haggis, which I'm not and I don't, though I did try it. Twice. Christ, you've lost a lot of blood, doc. Pressure wrap's probably the best I can do for now." Looking up at Cornelius, he said, "Now might be a good time to answer the kid's question. Don't lie. Or I'll make this hurt more than it has to."

"The woman has an accelerated brood rate. Due to their heightened healing factors, both ferals are sterile. But they discovered that intermixing his DNA with others and using it to fertilize one of her eggs, their progeny could be implanted and gestate in a different host parent. The child would grow to birthing size in weeks." Cornelius groaned. "Gibney was one of those experiments. Their senses are so sharp that they could actually scent the genetic connection to his mother, even after all these years. You have three parents, Gibney. The mother you knew, and the two outside trying to kill you."

Kyle's face screwed up, and he moved his mouth but only a soft grunt came out. He stayed on the ground and buried his head in his arms. His shoulders shook, and more grunts could be heard. He finally stood, after what felt to him like forever, but couldn't have been because if it had been, things would be so much worse. His face was tight with rage, lips pulled back to show sharp teeth and eyes slitted., and then he was in Cornelius' face in two steps.. "I have two parents, assjack. Fuck that shit and fuck you."

"As you wish." The man said quietly, fear obvious in his eyes.

Kane reached out and grabbed Kyle's shoulder, forcing him to step back. "Truth or not, we still need to get out of here."

“Arkady had an off-road vehicle parked behind the building. There's a long concrete tunnel that leads out from here. I'm sure he's taken it, but it would get us on the surface hundreds of yards from here."

Cornelius was forced to stop talking, his face as white as sheet as North tied off the thread he had been working with and snapped off the access with his fingers. The spy leaned back to examine his bloodied needlework as Wade finished up, but glanced sharply at Kane a moment later, worry evident in the creases of his furrowed brows.

“Something has changed. My visions just went dark.”

"That's never good," Wade muttered, repacking his mini first aid kit and stowing it on his belt again. He grinned suddenly despite his injuries and their less than hopeful outlook. "C'mon, Mav - what good are you without your precogy bits working? Don't they make a little blue pill for that? Or is that for something else not working? You need little blue pills? I'm pretty sure somebody knows somebody who knows somebody who could get you some."

Logan smacked Wade upside the head. "Not a time for jokin'. Scoop up patchwork doc here and let's get headed toward that tunnel." He wiped his blood covered hands on his jeans as he looked toward the dented steel door. It wasn't shifting any more. "More time we spend gettin' further away from whatever they have planned the better, wouldn't ya think?"



Garrison, Logan and North try to buy some time while Wade and Kyle escape with Cornelius.



"They cut the power." Cornelius said in a hushed voice, as the sound of the HVAC system slowly died away. The bunker like room went dark until they cracked a couple of glow sticks, outlining everything in an eerie green light.

"That means they think they have a way in." Kane strained to hear any further noises, but the gloom was silent. Hunkering down in the base on lockdown had bought them an hour and change. But for all the Blackbird's speed, they still didn't know how far out it was. Kane shook his head.

"Wade, take Kyle and the Doctor. When they attack, Logan, North and I will hold them here. If you head straight down the valley slope to the river, you can follow it back to the train tracks and then the highway. It will give the Blackbird a positional reference to find you." He didn't wait for the answer, instead pushing them both towards the rear section, which included a long tunnel originally meant for service vehicles. It would drop them out a couple of hundred metres south of the facility, and give them a head start.

As they left, Logan started to take short, quick sniffs. Kane knew that sign. It meant whatever he smelled was closing in.

"Ready, kids?" Logan popped his claws and stepped forward to put himself front and center. "'Cause it looks like the party's come to us."

The scents of the ferals were an intermingling of wood and dirt with an overlay of their distinctive musk. It'd been dogging his senses the entire time they were here and now he could put a face to it. He cast glances at the darkened computer displays and elaborately housed machines that stood in silence around them. Logan was good but he wasn't the same level of feral as the two coming after them and given enough time he'd be hard pressed to keep himself alive much less the other two. "Anythin' here we can use to buy us some more time?"

“Einen Moment.” The darkness and inadequate lighting were messing with North’s ability to read his own powers, and he shut his eyes to focus more effectively on it. He palmed the handle of his gun, eyes shifting behind the closed lids as his mind grabbed and discarded options, the colour of his pupils having long bled into whiteness, no doubt.

“Backup generator at Kane’s 5 o’clock. Old and has not kicked in because they shorted the voltage sensing unit… but it will serve nicely as a Taser, I believe. That, or we can blow up the gas pipe running above our heads,” he added, a short afterthought that sounded like an honest consideration.

"Considering our last encounter, I say we throw the whole kitchen sink at them." Kane turned towards the generator. North's idea was promising, but he saw a twist to help it. "I'm going to rig a bypass. I say we hit them with the pipe first. if it doesn't take the whole building skyhigh, it should kick on the sprinkler system. Once they're under the spray, we hit them with the taser."

"Knew I liked havin' you around for a reason." Logan rolled his shoulders then stalked around the front of the little room to see if there was anything else that might help them. "Almost wish it would take the buildin' first. Might buy us a little longer than bein' punchin' bags for 'em."

“I enjoy a good explosion more than I enjoy being a punching bag,” North commented, standing on a table so he could peer up at the pipes, before swinging down and going off in search of the valve controls, his guns back in their holsters. “But taking the building would wipe us out too and I am an old man not prone to rapid healing.”

"Cut the gas valve done by half then?" Kane turned and twisted a knob by the register, pulling back the volume of gas running through the pipes. They needed the explosion, but there was no sense committing suicide.

"Need me to do anythin' other than be an early warnin' system and meat barricade?" Kane and North had everything under control and Logan didn't know what he could add to the jerry-rigging of the place. He was also leery of moving too far from the doorway because the scent of the ferals was getting to the point where it overpowered everything else. "Might wanna hurry it up a bit, fellas."

“We have 68 seconds,” North affirmed, lifting his watch to catch the meagre light in the room. He could not quite make sense of his visions beyond that point – too dark, too fast, bright flashes of light and his face meeting a solid and wet surface. Once the Canadian was done, North moved to the far end of the room, unholstered a gun, cocked it and aimed it at the point above the door where he knew Kane’s rigged bypass ran to. It would take two shots, he estimated, and then friction sparks from Wolverine’s claws. “No time for finesse.”

"You know, one day I'm going to invent a time machine, go back to the point that the first person came up with this whole Weapon-X idea, and kick him right in the fucking nuts." Garrison pulled back as well, getting his body wedged partially behind a concrete pillar.

The seconds went astonishingly slow, punctuated by the howls from outside. There was a dully pounding at the door; not actual blows but more like someone testing the thickness. With a groan of tortured metal, the corner was suddenly driven in. Clawed fingers curled around the bent end and pulled it back, like a tuna can being pulled open. The first thing that hit them was the rank musk, thick and cloying. The door was leveraged aside, and a pair walked in. They moved partially hunched, like film werewolves, but the feral cast wasn't the product of Hollywood effects. The man that Cornelius had called Romulus straightened, shoulders rolling back. There was a palpable aura about him; a resonance of assumed dominance. His yellow gaze swept the room, unimpeded by the darkness.

When Romulus' gaze crawled over Logan, he shivered. So that's what it was like, knowing you weren't the top of the food chain and realizing this was going to be a pitched battle. One that was definitely not in your favor. It was probably a safe bet that the pair of them knew exactly where they all were without even trying. But they were completely feral. So far they hadn't shown signs of containing anything more than animal instincts. Time to find out one way or another. He roared as he charged toward the pair. His claws scraped the floor and tossed up sparks around his feet.

And there was North’s cue, followed rapidly by two gunshots. And a third, just for good measure. An explosion sounded somewhere above their heads, somewhat like a triumphant cry, but not before something large shot toward him and pushed him off his perch and onto the floor. The marksman twisted midair and landed awkwardly on his side, resisting the urge to fire a shot at the feral no more than two metres away from him as he raised his gun and fired the shot that kicked the sprinklers to life.

Kane reached forward and grabbed North, pulled him back and on to his feet. The explosion had forced Logan to check his charge as both ferals slapped at the flames and wounds on their bodies. Their ears rang with the sound of the explosion, and Garrison took the distraction to push him back towards the concrete exit.

"Logan, let's go." They'd bought a few minutes, and a fighting retreat would buy more for Wade and Kyle. A last stand down here wouldn't.

It wasn't the prettiest of retreats and was a stitched together tactical one at that. Wouldn't make any history books for sure, just some late night bar talk if that. Logan grunted acknowledgement and lagged behind to provide some breathing room for Kane and North. They just had to hope the fire would slow them down enough to make a damn difference.