There was no fucking way they were going to get him again. He was done being their guinea pig. Enough was enough and he was going to get out if he had to kill each and every one of them to do it.
“Logan, calm down. Everything is all right.”
He didn’t recognize the redhead, but that didn’t mean anything. They had probably just switched doctors to throw him off guard. Not gonna work.
“Logan, I really don’t think that you should be standing right now. You were hurt pretty bad when the building collapsed on you.”
Red was getting closer. That wasn’t good. Logan growled and, to his surprise, a set of metal claws shot out of both hands from his knuckles. His eyes locked on them for a moment, trying to figure out where they had come from before it all clicked.
Tank of water.
Searing pain.
Doctors will all sorts instruments.
Liquefied metal.
“Stay the fuck away from me, Red!” Logan roared, his panic rising once again. He tore at the bandages that covered him, giving himself more freedom of motion. He wasn’t going to let them restrain him in any way.
Red held her hands out towards him and slowly continued her approach. “I’m not going to hurt you, Logan. You’ve been injured and I want to make sure that you’re all right before you go tearing around the mansion.”
Logan growled and made a slashing motion with his right hand. “You’re not getting me again!”
“Logan, please sit down. Even with your healing factor you haven’t had time to recuperate yet. A building collapsed on top of you. That takes a while to recover from,” Red insisted, looking quite flustered. He could smell her uneasiness and growled again.
“Nice fuckin’ try, Red. The reason I feel like shit is ‘cause you and your buddies are pumping me full o’ metal,” Logan snarled, refusing to bow down to his knees desire to give out. He flashed his claws. “I gotta admit, though, you do nice work. Nowhere near as crude as some of your earlier work.”
Logan could smell someone else approaching and was instantly on alert. He would be outnumbered now and didn’t much care for that fact. Flaring his nostrils, Logan searched out the direction that this new threat would come from. A guy this time.
Another doctor.
“Jean, I received your message. What seems to be the-- Dear Lord! Logan, what are you doing awake?”
A mutant.
The fucking doctor was a fucking mutant! The blue-furred bastard was helping the sadists “enhance” him even more.
With an outraged scream, Logan launched himself over the table he had originally been lying on and made a dash for the door. When Red and the Blue Bastard tried to stop him, Logan merely shoved them out of the way, nearly falling down himself. His centre of balance felt off, but Logan ignored that as he fought to make his quick escape. There was no way in hell he was gonna let them do anything else to him.
“Logan, wait!”
“Logan!”
Running purely on instincts which Logan hoped they hadn’t fucked with, he bolted from the room only to come to a complete stop in the hallway, unsure of where to go. Hearing a door somewhere on his left opening, Logan went right.
“LOGAN!!”
That was a new voice. Female. Southern lilt. Logan felt something pulling at the back of his mind, but ignored it. Just more programming from the sadist pricks who gave him his claws.
Using his lead to his advantage, Logan rounded a corner and jumped up, punching a hole through a vent cover with his claws. Yanking his arm back, Logan jumped out of the way of the falling metal. Hearing the approach of rapid footsteps, Logan grabbed hold of the ledge and pulled himself into the vent. His arms trembled with strain as he hauled himself up, but Logan forced his muscles to remain strong as he wiggled his way into the vent.
“Logan! Sugah, what are ya doin’?”
Again the Southern female. He could hear the desperation in her voice and it threw Logan off. He wasn’t going to let them fool him twice. They got him the last time with some slip of a girl in need of “help.” Not again. They were not going to make him vulnerable again. He was going to get as far away as possible and go home.
As he crawled through the dusty shaft, Logan realized that he wasn’t even completely sure where home was. All that he could remember was the medical labs. He had been there too long. It felt as though he had been there for years.
He did have a home, though. A cabin out deep in the mountains. There wasn’t much to it, but it was home. And Logan was going to figure out a way to get there. He would disappear into the mountains to lick his wounds and return stronger than before. After that, none of them would be left.
Logan would raze this entire complex to the ground after what they did to him.
His hands were getting warm.
His knees were getting warm.
A quick glance to the bottom of the vent shaft revealed that the dusty grey metal was beginning to turn red.
“What the....”
Logan’s confusion turned into screams of pain as the flesh on his palms and shins began to burn.
Suddenly, the floor beneath him disappeared launching Logan into the air. He fell hard, his body impacting off the ground painfully. Before Logan could fully orient himself, he felt a stinging pain in the back of his neck
Things started to get hazy at that point. He tried to move, but his limbs felt sluggish and heavy.
What caught him the most off guard was the gentle hand moving through his hair.
“Everythin’ is gonna be all right, Logan....”
It was the Southern woman again.
~*~*~*~*~
Marie hadn’t though anything could be worse than watching Logan unconscious in the med lab following the accident. She had hoped to never see anything worse than that. Instead, she had been greeted by the sight of Logan’s sheer panic as he raced down the corridor away from her. His fear had been overwhelming. She could feel it as though it were her own.
“Jeanie, what the fuck is goin’ on?” Marie demanded as she stared at Logan through the observation window of the padded confinement cell. He was securely restrained, monitors all over his body to try and determine what had caused Logan’s confusing actions.
Jean let out a weary sigh, scrubbing her face with both hands. “I wish I could tell you. It would seem as though Logan has no memory of anything beyond what happened to him when he was... altered.”
Marie squeezed her eye shut, a tear sliding down her cheek. “This isn’t happenin’. Gawd, Ah thought that the worse was over. Ah thought that once Logan woke up, everythin’ would be all right. Y’know? Logan’s strong, he’s not s’pose t’ get hurt like this.”
“I really don’t know what to say, Rogue,” Jean admitted. “I’m just as confused as you are.”
Marie turned to the older woman, a dark look on her face. “Yeah, well ya don’t hafta worry ‘bout explainin’ t’ two little boys why their Daddy might not remember them. Ah hafta figure out a way t’ explain t’ Chase an’ Hunter that their Daddy might not remember who they are.”
“Rogue, I need your permission to enter Logan’s mind,” Charles said, startling Marie who hadn’t even realized that he was nearby.
Marie stared at the man in shock. “What d’ ya mean ya need mah permission?”
“You are Logan’s next of kin. With him unconscious, I need permission from you to read his mind and determine what has happened to him,” Charles explained gently.
Marie glanced around blankly, unsure of what to do. For a long while she stared at Logan’s bound and unconscious form. He looked so small right then. Marie wasn’t used to seeing Logan like that. He was supposed to look like that. Logan was strong. He was a fighter.
Logan was going to get better and they could put this whole mess behind him.
“Rogue....”
“D-do it,” Marie murmured, more tears filling her eyes, making her vision blurry.
“It is for the best, Rogue,” Charles assured her. “We need to find out what happened to Logan.”