Land of Blood and Honey: Parts 1-3

by Dyce

Disclaimer: None of the characters named belong to me, except for Annie and Geordi. I have not been given permission to use these characters, and I have made no money by their unauthorized use. This piece of fiction is intended solely as an expression of my own interest in and affection for the characters within it, and not in any way as an indictment upon Marvel and their increasingly predictable and regrettable mischaracterization of said characters, or how poorly Marvel has handled recent storylines involving said characters.

Author's Note: This is for all the people who sent me feedback. :) There were lots of them - far too many to list here, people'd get bored - and I appreciate each and every one of the things they wrote me.

I didn't reply individually to each and every one. I figured they'd prefer I wrote this, instead. ^-^

This is a sequel to The Godless Among Them and Slavery, Deliverance, and Faith, which can both be found here --> http://www.geocities.com/minisinoo/dyce.html

Logan opened his eyes, and stared at the ceiling. The pink light of dawn was just coming through the windows, which meant he'd slept a little late, but not so much that it mattered. He didn't move yet, since it was a nippy morning and once he started he was going to have to keep moving fairly fast. Instead he gazed at the ceiling, blankets snuggled around his ears, and thought about the day ahead. Breakfast first. He and Creed had agreed that the kids could learn to get by on short rations later. They had to get fed up good first, especially while they were still layering on muscle. It was better to go into a no-food situation in the peak of condition than it was to go in prepared by always being hungry anyway.

None of that sissy sugary crap for breakfast, though. Porridge full of dried fruit, with eggs and bacon. That was a good, solid breakfast, and stuffing it into the kids every morning for the last eight weeks was showing some good results. Clarice had always been a bit on the skinny side, and Jonny and Kyle... he didn't know how they'd joined up, but they had... were downright scrawny at first. Lots of exercise and good food was fixing that, and he was pleased about that. He liked seeing the kids getting some flesh on their bones. It made him feel like he was doing a good job, taking care of them right.

They were good kids. Well, except Geordi, he was a pain in the ass. But he couldn't help it. Once the hormones settled down and he worked through the residue of sixteen years of resentment, he'd be okay. Even Creed was almost patient with him. Logan figured he knew how it felt to be a tiny fragment of consciousness on a wild ride of testosterone and over-sensitive instincts and a lot of generalized resentment. He hadn't ripped the kid even one new orifice, and there were times when Logan wouldn't have blamed him at all.

Okay. Time to start the day. Logan kicked off the blankets, wincing a little - it was definitely getting colder in the mornings - and made his customary start to the day, which was dousing his head in icy water and yelling "OUTTA BED!" at the top of his lungs.

He heard the grumbles and the mutters as six pairs of rapidly toughening little feet hit the floor, and grinned, heading for the kitchen.

Creed was presumably already up, since there was fresh coffee in the pot. There was no electricity in their little hut... it was usually rented out for wilderness retreats by students, or so Logan understood, which was why there were two 'teacher' rooms, and a couple of bigger ones with bunks... but it belonged to Creed, and he wasn't a big fan of electricity. He liked woodstoves and candles just fine.

Logan liked them too. The coffee-pot sat on the back of the stove all day, and the stove kept the rest of the house reasonably warm, as long as all the inside doors were left open, and the outside doors kept shut. It was still dim here at the back of the house, but the oil-lamp in the middle of the table was lit. Logan turned it up a bit, and poured himself some coffee.

Marie stumbled into the kitchen, still yawning, her hair ruffled around her face and a bulky sweater pulled over her pyjamas. "Gimme that," she said, pointing to the cup with an adorably mulish pout on her face.

"Get yer own," he grunted, but he smiled fondly at her. It was a lot easier to get attached to Marie, who was cute and liked him, than it was to get attached to Geordi, who wasn't and didn't.

"Can't. It's too hard." Marie wasn't a morning person.

Annie was, and she bounced into the kitchen with a cheery beam. "Hi, guys!"

"Ge' me some coffee?" Marie asked hopefully.

"Sure." Annie slopped some coffee into a mug, and handed it to Marie. She didn't bother asking if she could have any - the unvarying 'No' had eventually gotten to her. Instead, she poured herself some milk, which they got fresh every day from a farm not too far down the road. "Is Dad outside?"

"I guess." Logan shrugged. "Only just woke up. Coffee was on, though."

Annie nodded. Creed had a tendency to take a swing around the edge of the property - checking the perimeter, he called it - when he woke up in the morning. Sometimes he'd bring back a fresh rabbit or two. He was the only person Logan had ever met more wary than he was... still, he was the one Magneto might come after. That'd probably freak Logan out, too.

* * *

"Xavier School for the Gifted, Ororo Monroe speaking."

Creed grinned. "Yer least favourite person," he growled.

"Oh." The distaste in her voice spoke volumes. "Where's Logan? He's the one who usually calls in."

"Left him watchin' the cubs." Sabretooth picked idly at the tattered phonebook that graced the phonebox, leaving furrows in the paper. "Just lettin' you know that Magneto ain't got us yet."

"Wonderful." The woman sounded pissed that he was still alive. He respected that. He'd want to see him dead, too. "Are the children all right?"

"Fine." They were eating, they were sleeping, they were finally putting on some muscle. "You keep yourself nice, sweetcheeks, huh?"

"Drop dead," she snarled, hanging up the phone. Creed laughed. He was starting to like her.

He'd come to town for a reason, though. There were things Logan shied away from doing. He'd already taken care of one of them - there was a small arsenal of firearms in the back of the jeep, and a roll of cheap paper. He'd get Annie to draw the people-shapes on it.

He'd picked up other things, too... drugs and poisons, mostly. He needed to teach the kids how to identify them... and how to use them. Well, Annie and Clarice, mostly, but he'd show the others too. He'd have to go someplace bigger for the rarer and more expensive things, but he could work with basic stuff for now.

He headed for the post office, and casually terrified the postal workers until they coughed up the package he'd been waiting on. More of a crate, really. Anyone opening it would have seen a clutter of toys and books suitable for various ages... and the toys and books would go to the kids. The money, assorted small gadgets, and supply of blowfish toxin hidden inside them were just useful extras.

He was in a good humour when he got back to the cabin to find Logan already running the kids through the morning workout. Annie was teaching Kyle and Jonny some more bits and pieces of various martial arts disciplines, while Logan had the other three throwing knives at a tree. The tree was holding up fairly well, which meant Geordi and Marie still hadn't gotten the knack. Clarice was had been doing okay yesterday, but she still wasn't strong enough to get the knife into wood. "Hi!" she squeaked now, running over to him. She looked kinda cute all grubby, in baggy overalls and bare feet. "Did you bring anything good?"

"Some fun stuff." He ruffled her hair amiably, nearly knocking her over - he had to start remembering how easy she tipped over - and roared. By now everyone had learned that meant 'pay attention', so they stopped what they were doing and wandered over.

He'd fished some of the goodies out of the crate, and now he held up a small leather pouch on a long cord. "Here." He tossed it to Annie. "Wear that."

She weighed it experimentally in one small hand. "What's in it?"

"Money, a blade about as long as your finger, and a lighter," Creed grunted, fishing more of the pouches out of the crate. "Wear it even to sleep, understand?" He tossed the other bags to the other kids, and was pleased to note that none of the catches were dropped or fumbled.

"Why?" Geordi asked, looking suspicious.

"So if we gotta clear out in a hurry, we won't be broke an' defenseless," Marie told him, rolling her eyes a little. "It's a good idea." She put hers around her neck, and gave him a lopsided little smile. "Thanks."

"Forget it." He still felt a little bad about letting Magneto shove her in that machine. "When yer better trained, I'm takin' you all on a drive an' throwing you out of the car with whatever you've got on you. I won't be givin' you any warning, so never take that pouch off, understand?"

They all nodded. Logan was giving him a surprised, rather approving look. "It's a good idea," he agreed.

Creed snorted, and tossed him an empty pouch. "You can fill your own."

"Wouldn't have it any other way," Logan grinned toothily.

Creed grinned just as toothily. "Good." He pulled open the back door and hoisted the bundle of assorted firearms onto his shoulder. "Go back to kicking and tossing, kiddies. You're starting guns tomorrow."

* * *

"Okay, this is getting weird." Geordi pulled his knees up under his chin. They were having their quiet conference in the girl's room, and while Jonny and Kyle had both been permitted to stick as much of themselves as fitted under Annie's comforter, neither Clarice nor Marie had chosen to lend him more than a pillow to sit on. "Why are they teaching us all this stuff? And why *guns*?"

"I guess they're trying to take care of us," Annie shrugged, curled up in a small blonde ball between the other two guys. "They want us to be able to take care of ourselves, and this is the only kind of training they know."

Geordi frowned at her. "And what kind of training *is* it?" he asked, trying to keep a handle on his temper... less because he didn't want to offend anyone, and more because he was sick of Annie sanctimoniously telling everyone that they had to be nice to him because the testosterone was going to his head and he'd calm down in a few years.

"Mercenary. Commando. You know, like in Mission Impossible?" Annie opened her yellow eyes guilelessly wide. "We're learning a profession." There was a long silence. Everyone stared at her. "What?" she said a bit plaintively. "I liked that movie!"

"Me too, but..." Marie scrunched up her pretty nose and gave her friend a puzzled look. "But why would they teach us to be mercenaries?"

"Because it's all they KNOW," Annie said with exaggerated patience. "Weren't you LISTENING?"

"Yeah, but..." Marie shook her head in bewilderment. "What if we don't *want* to be mercenaries?"

Annie shrugged. "Hand to hand fighting, sharpshooting, lockpicking, and a knowledge of Useful Poisons are skills that never stop being useful," she said brightly. "Trust me, these are skills worth acquiring."

"You said that about fishing with our feet, too," Clarice pointed out from her nest of blankets.

"And if you're ever lost in the wilderness without arms you'll THANK me for that," Annie retorted.

Most of the others snickered. "We'll keep that in mind," Marie agreed, trying to keep her face straight.

"Good." Annie nibbled absently on a frayed claw. "Anyway, the faster we learn, the faster we'll be able to go on jobs and stuff."

There was another long silence. "Jobs?" Kyle asked cautiously.

"You know, jobs. Stealing stuff, guarding stuff, the odd assassination..."

"Assassination?" Geordi did not squeak. Not because he didn't *want* to squeak, it was just that his voice didn't go up that high any more.

"Sure." She gave him that slow, toothy grin, the one that made her eyes seem to glow. "I'll do those, if you're too chicken."

* * *

Training picked up after that. The two men stopped running the teenagers to exhaustion every day and started them on other things. Annie got the position of assistant instructor, since her training in the Facility where she'd grown up had been fairly extensive. The other five soon found their heads being stuffed with a dizzying array of information. They all had to have driving lessons, especially the kind that involved going very fast on slippery roads. They all had to learn some basic lock-picking skills. They had to lean how to use various kinds of weapons, and how to disable them as well. They had to learn how to identify various sorts of poisons, and how to counteract them. They were still getting extensive physical stuff, and a lot of survival-in-the-wilderness training.

And Geordi started noticing something else, that he was fairly sure the others weren't picking up on. The focus of all their training was on necessity. They were being taught how to disable any number of opponents with their bare hands, but also how to kill them... in case it was necessary. How to shoot to wound, incapacitate with small doses of drugs or poison, hit someone in just the right spot to render them unconscious without doing permanent harm... but every lesson carried over into fatality, just in case it was necessary.

And it worked better than it would have if the focus had been on killing. If it had, most of them would have balked early on. But it wasn't - instead, the killing was slipped in as a last resort, as a 'just in case', on the tail of more civilised and palatable alternatives. They all knew, trainers and trainees alike, that sometimes last resorts were necessary - after the nightmarish events of his kidnapping and immurement in the facility, even Geordi found himself accepting it. But after a while he realized that they were all being fed the idea that sometimes killing *was* necessary, that sometimes it *was* unavoidable... and that under those circumstances, they should just go ahead and do it, without worrying.

They were being taught to think of killing as unpleasant but entirely viable option... just in case, of course.

It freaked him out enough, when he finally realized it, that he bailed on morning training for the first time ever and went and hid up one of the tallest trees he could find. Not that they wouldn't be able to find him, of course, but an unofficial convention had settled in among them that someone up a tree was someone who wanted to be left alone.

He wanted to be left alone. He wanted to go home to his family, in Canada where he fitted in, where he knew where he stood. But he couldn't go back... both Professor Xavier and his newly-discovered father had warned him of how much danger he might pose to his family. Xavier had been tactful. Logan hadn't. He couldn't put them at risk like that, and he couldn't stay at the school because apparently that was compromised too and he was STUCK here unless he wanted to strike out on his own, and he didn't want to do that, was ashamed of his fear of being alone and defenseless...

It didn't surprise him that Sabretooth was the one who came looking for him. His father tended to get all tangled up in guilt and confusion when he tried to communicate with Geordi, and they all knew he didn't pay much attention to the other, younger adolescents. He did, however, have a healthy respect for Creed, who had a tendency to smack him around the ears if he didn't behave. There was something about a casual cuff that left you deaf in one ear and your eyes fuzzy for a few minutes that made you talk more politely next time. "Go away," he said anyway, since he was currently twenty feet above any potential ear-cuffing.

"Not unless you've got a damn good reason for skippin' out on a healthy eight mile run uphill," Creed said calmly. "Get yer ass down here, or I'll come up and throw you down."

Reluctantly, Geordi climbed down, to a mere five feet or so above the ground. "What?"

Creed leaned back against another tree, looking up at him. It was a mark of the man's supreme self-confidence that he could have a conversation with someone much higher than he was without seeming to feel anything but completely in charge. "What's crawled up your ass?" he asked bluntly. "I can see ya twitching from here."

"You're training us to be killers, aren't you?" Geordi said bluntly.

Creed actually looked a little surprised, bushy eyebrows twitching and unreadable black eyes widening a little. "Yeah. You're just figuring this out now?"

Geordi gritted his teeth. He wanted to yell and kick and make the man see how fucked up this all was... but there was no point. Creed was a killer, he always had been. From his perspective, he was probably being a good, responsible parent, teaching his girls how to take care of themselves in the most efficient way possible. "Why?" he gritted out. "Why the sudden need to turn us all into efficient little murderers as fast as possible?"

"Because someone has to," Sabretooth said grimly. "Listen, kid, you've got a healing factor. That makes you prize property for any one of a hundred private organisations, pseudo-military groups, or renegade government units. If you don't learn to defend yerself NOW, you'll wind up like your old man. Head screwed to kingdom come, body fucked with, and about enough sanity left to keep you makin' sentences. That what you want?"

"No!" Geordi kicked the trunk of the tree furiously. "I don't want any part of this!"

A huge hand came up and yanked him down out of the tree, bringing him down hard on his feet and yanking him in close. Geordi was already six foot two, and might get taller. Creed made him feel short. "You don't get that, kid," the older man gritted out. "You can't not get involved. You're a prize, a big juicy bone that's gonna get fought over by every scavenger on this planet until the day you fucking *die*. Your only choice is to come in on yer own terms, trained and prepared enough that nobody can screw with you too bad, or get dragged in untrained, unprepared, and get yerself so broken that you never put yerself back together. Do you understand me? There is no 'not involved' option here."

"But-"

"No buts." Geordi was pushed away, to stumble back against his tree. Creed folded his arms and gave him what might almost have been a sympathetic look. "It's fucked up, kid, I know that. If I could think of a different way, you think I wouldn't take it f'r Annie and Clarice? But there just ain't any other options. You can be a predator, or you can be prey. It's just the way this shit works."

Geordi shook his head, growling unhappily. Then he realized what he was doing, and blinked. Creed, Logan, Kyle and Annie all did that, made little growls and purrs and other noises, usually without even noticing they were doing it. He hadn't noticed himself. He was getting more like them. The idea scared him, but at the same time he kinda liked it. It made him feel like he belonged. Like he fitted in. Knowing black eyes told him the growl... and his reaction to it... had been noted. How could someone so apparently thick notice every tiny thing? "I'm not committing to anything," Geordi said after a long moment. "But I'll stay. And train. Annie says it's an okay way to make a living."

"There's worse," Creed agreed. "You won't starve."

Geordi nodded. "I'll be back for lunch," he said, not quite able to back down enough to be hauled back like a naughty child. "Just gonna... you know, beat up some trees and stuff."

Creed nodded and slipped away, blending into the forest so totally that even in worn jeans and a red and blue flannel shirt, he vanished within seconds.

* * *

That night, Logan was sitting on the big lump of hardwood that served as a chopping block for firewood, smoking and staring up at the stars. "They all asleep?" he asked, as a big shadow slipped out of the back door.

"Mostly." Creed made himself comfortable on the round concrete edge of the septic tank. He hadn't bothered to hide it below ground. "The brat's takin' his revelation hard."

Logan sighed, taking the cigar out of his mouth and fiddling with it. "Maybe we ain't taking the best approach," he said a little regretfully. "Xavier's way-"

"Don't work. You know that." Creed was a vague outline in the starlight, but Logan could hear the dismissive sneer in his voice. "If we don't teach 'em what they need now, they're gonna wind up like you... or worse."

"Yeah." Logan didn't know what, if anything, Creed knew about the Weapon X program. He'd mentioned once that at some point he'd had tags like Logan's, but had lost them. That was it. He got a look in his eyes when it was mentioned, though, that suggested that whatever he remembered, it wasn't a pleasant memory. "Feels wrong, though. To keep 'em from getting made like us, we're making them like us ourselves?"

Creed shrugged massive shoulders, his head tilting back to gaze up at the stars. "Better us," he rumbled. "Better teachin' 'em now, without screwing with their heads too much, than having it forced on 'em later."

"I guess." Logan snorted, mouth quirking in resignation. "Guess we're stuck with each other for a while."

There was a long pause. The silhouetted shoulders slumped a little. "Yeah," Creed said grudgingly. "It'd be worse'n stupid to split up now." Neither of them would leave the cubs they'd either sired or adopted. And separating while they were lumbered with half-trained cubs was tantamount to suicide. "Heard from Mags."

"What does he want?" Logan inquired with a certain hostile interest.

"Me, back at work." Creed shrugged. "Told him no. Not a word the man likes to hear."

"I'll bet." Logan puffed on his cigar for a minute. "So. We're stuck with each other for a bit longer." It was weird. He still hated Creed, but it had a kind of mechanical feel to it. He was having less and less trouble shoving it aside to work with the man... although admittedly they didn't work together all that closely. More a matter of organising the day's schedule then taking the kids out in opposite directions. Creed had his faults, but he was a pro, and he was treating this like a job.

"Don't let the brat get to ya," Creed said surprisingly, after a long silence.

"Huh?" Logan blinked.

"The brat." Creed stood up and stretched luxuriously. "Don't feel guilty over getting his pure little self all messed up with nasty old violence. It's gonna happen no matter what you do. Best you can hope for is to ease him into it gentle-like."

Such relative kindness and sensitivity was completely unlike Creed, and Logan said so. Creed snorted. "Don't get me wrong. I don't like you, and the brat pisses me off on a daily basis." He shrugged again and turned to enter the house. "There's just some things I wouldn't wish on anyone."

Part 2

"I'm not hungry," Jonny insisted, leaning back against the trunk of a tree. "You go eat."

Kyle eyed him with concern. "You've hardly been eating anything the last few days," he said, squatting easily beside his friend. "How can you not be hungry? We're doing enough exercise to burn off a small cow." He'd more or less gotten into the habit of talking again... at least to Jonny, who always listened to him. He didn't talk so much to the others, except Annie and Clarice, who were just too little and cute to resist.

"I'm just not hungry," Jonny shrugged. He gave Kyle one of those innocent looks, big brown eyes wide. "I just... don't seem to need it. I'm fine, really."

"Uh-huh," Kyle said sceptically. Sure, Jonny hadn't been getting tired much lately... in fact, he'd outraced Kyle a few times, and that was hard to do. But Kyle had trouble believing in mysterious energy sources that didn't require food.

He gave his friend a worried look. Jonny had been acting a little... odd, lately. Odder than usual. He'd always been a bit quiet and stiff-upper-lip-ish, as befitted his British heritage, but now he was getting positively vague. They all knew he was a telepath, but he didn't seem to be able to pick up more than fuzzy impressions from the others, maybe a word or two at most. Before they'd left, Xavier had told them it was because Jonny's powers hadn't developed yet. Could developing powers make Jonny go weird? Kyle didn't know. But he knew it was his job to take care of the little guy. "Are you sure you don't wanna eat something? A cookie?"

"Maybe later." Jonny pulled his knees up under his chin. "I'm just gonna sit here and watch the stars come out."

"Okay..." Kyle said reluctantly. He didn't want to leave, but he was hungry enough to eat his own shoes, and if he didn't show up for dinner, the other three with healing factors tended to polish off any food in sight. Especially Annie, who was still growing. "But I'm coming back after."

"Right. Go eat," Jonny agreed absently, his eyes on the darkening sky.

* * *

Creed growled softly, clawing restlessly at the phonebook again. He was down in the tiny townlet again, in the middle of the night, this time. The little phonebox's light was out... he'd taken care of that first thing... and he gazed out at the dim landscape.

*ring*...

*ring*...

The phone was picked up between the fourth and fifth rings, although nobody made a sound on the other end. Creed grunted. Back to business as usual. "It's me," he growled, giving the words a little roar at the end. Nobody else could even make that noise, except Mystique, and she wasn't very good. They'd know it was him.

"Well, well... the prodigal housepet." Oh, hell, it was Toad. He hated Toad. "Calling to change your mind? Rejoin the crusade?"

"No," Creed growled. "Calling to make sure my message was understood."

"Of course," Toad giggled, and Creed could almost see him making that stupid face. "You were worried that we might interpret 'No. Fuck off', as a joyful cry of support."

Then he made a weird squeaking noise, there was a thump, and Magneto's rich voice filled the phonebox, even through the tinniness of a trans-Atlantic line. "Sabretooth. Dare I hope that you have chosen to return to the fold?"

"No," Sabretooth growled unhappily. He'd liked working for Magneto. Sure, he'd been treated like a dumb flunky, but he'd fitted in. That had been a new and precious feeling. "Thing's've changed since you got put away."

"Nothing has changed," Magneto said, his voice getting a little sharper. "Not the world, and not our duty to our brothers and sisters. Have you become soft, Sabretooth? Don't tell me that you are choosing to side with Charles!"

"No," Creed growled again. He was NOT siding with Xavier. He was just using him to get what he wanted. "I ain't on anyone's side anymore, Magneto. I got... stuff to take care of."

The sharpness instantly faded into sympathy. "Of course, my friend, if it is a personal matter... but perhaps I could assist you? Surely, whatever this difficulty is, it would be better handled by all of us, together?"

Creed closed his eyes, resting his forehead against the cold glass of the booth. He wanted to agree. He wanted to tell Magneto everything and let him take care of it, like he was so good at doing. "I can't," he said softly, knowing that there was a little whimper in the growl and hating it. But he was defying the pride leader and it was hard, even though he knew he had to. "This is something I gotta take care of."

"Very well," Magneto agreed slowly. "I regret that you don't consider it possible to confide in me, Sabretooth, but I will not interfere. Please do remain in contact, however."

"If I can," Sabretooth agreed reluctantly, and he hadn't meant to promise that much, but this was all so hard... "I gotta go." He hung up quickly, before temptation became too much.

It was... frightening. He'd had a pride and a pride leader - before he'd even known that was what he needed - and now he'd defied the alpha male and he was out all on his own. Which he'd always been, but that had been before he knew it was possible to be otherwise.

No. He shook his head, slipping out of the too-small booth and starting his walk back up the mountain. He wasn't alone. It was just that HE was pride leader now. With an annoying but necessary lieutenant - Logan - and a couple of little, soft cubs who needed him to protect them. After what Magneto had done to Rogue... and the memory of those frantic screams still haunted Creed... he couldn't be trusted with the others. Especially Annie, with so much potential power.

He growled softly, realizing that he'd found the right trigger. Magneto would hurt Creed's cubs if he found them. In his primarily instinct-driven mind, he watched Magneto flipped neatly from the 'pride leader' slot into the 'marauding male' slot. That was better. The part of his mind that he tended to ignore - what he thought of as the human part, full of aimless thoughts and unnecessary complications - was rather amused at how easily Magneto had gone from being someone Creed almost trusted, to being a potential enemy. He was starting to get a handle on his own instincts for the first time, and everything was falling into place more and more easily. He was a feline, like a lion. Male lions protected their cubs, and kept other males away... unless they were easily-whipped subordinate males like Logan. It was all so amazingly simple and comfortable.

Smiling a little, he jogged easily up the road towards the cabin.

* * *

"You're sure," Magneto said uneasily, tapping his fingers on his desk.

"Very sure." Helixx agreed, their voices as always so perfectly matched that it sounded as if only one person was speaking. "Sabretooth visited the headquarters of the X-Men regularly while you were... away."

Magneto chewed on his lip thoughtfully. Charles was just about soft-hearted and trusting enough to give Sabretooth a 'second chance'... but surely then he'd have stayed at the school, not come and gone. "What did he do there?"

Helixx blinked their wide blue eyes in exact unison, scrolling back through their memories. "He took a young girl away with him, then brought her back, at the beginning and end of each weekend," they reported. "After several events of this nature, he brought back two girls, not one. After one more weekend, he began taking both girls with him. The first resembles him physically. The second does not. Nine weeks ago, he was observed removing both girls from the school, in company with the man called Wolverine. Between them, they removed six adolescents, and took them away together." They frowned slightly. "Where they went, we do not know. They left our range."

"You should have..." Magneto trailed off and sighed. "Of course, you could not follow them. I had ordered you to watch the school, not Sabretooth."

"Yes," Helixx agreed in vacant unison. "We observed the school most closely."

Magneto sighed. Helixx were telepathically undetectable psi-spys, and thus were an invaluable resource, but only if you knew what orders to give them. They were identical twins... male, he thought, although it wasn't really possible to tell, given the perfect androgyny of the pair. For all he knew, they might be female, hermaphroditic, or genderless. It didn't matter, since the two of them cared for nothing but each other, and the Cause. They would obey any order he gave them, but that was all they could do, and they wouldn't follow up on what they observed unless they'd been told to. He was amazed that they'd had enough initiative to come to him and tell him of Sabretooth's apparent treachery. "Thank you, Helixx, that will be all. You may go finish generating your report."

"Yes, Magneto," they agreed, smiling in unison, and they walked away, arms wrapped lovingly around each other. Magneto suspected that much of their loyalty to him was derived from his acceptance of the inviolable bond between them.

Damn. This was an unfortunate complication. It dovetailed with Sabretooth's sudden, totally uncharacteristic insistence on dealing with whatever it was on his own. Where he'd gotten either of the little girls was anyone's guess, but... Using Rogue to power his machine might have been a greater error than he'd realized. Sabretooth wouldn't be keeping the children from him if he didn't think he had to, and if either of them were truly powerful...

Damn.

* * *

Logan sighed, picking up the discarded gun. "Marie-"

"I don't want to!" she insisted, stamping her little foot.

"I know, kid, but you have to," he said as gently as he could. "You might need to know one day."

Marie did that little hurt pouty look at him that made his knees go all mushy. "I don't like guns," she said softly.

He squashed the urge to tell her she didn't have to, that everything would be fine. "I know, but you gotta learn how to use one anyway. Just in case." He tousled her hair carefully. It was one of the 'safe' ways to touch her, and it was good for her not to feel like such a pariah. At least the other kids didn't treat her like one... Kyle, Annie and Clarice could easily have passed for not even knowing about it, Jonny didn't touch ANYONE except Kyle and sometimes Annie, and Geordi didn't touch anyone much either but that was because he was trying to cultivate a reputation as a complete asshole.

Even Sabretooth was casually ignoring the touch-issue. Only the day before yesterday he'd responded to Marie's complaints about having to wade through cold water (on the edge of a small lake, for a training exercise), by picking her up by the back of the shirt and the seat of the pants and throwing her out towards the middle. Which Logan hadn't been entirely happy about, mind you, but Creed certainly hadn't been flinching wimpishly while he was swinging Marie back to get some momentum.

Anyway, she'd swum back to shore fine.

"Why do I have to know how to shoot a gun?" Marie complained, taking the weapon again.

"Because someday you're gonna need to know," he repeated patiently. "Trust me, Marie, you ARE gonna need to know. I know these things."

"I guess," she muttered, a little rebelliously, but she went back to her target practice. She was getting better.

They all were. Clarice was, surprisingly, a naturally good shot. Geordi had the same slightly odd spatial perceptions that Logan himself did, but he was doing okay. So were the others.

He had to stop going all mushy inside every time Marie looked pathetic, though. She was too good at it, and he was pretty sure it put that goofy 'my cub is cuuuuute' look on his face that Sabretooth got every time Annie bagged a bunny and came running to show him.

Reminded of Annie, he wandered over to her. She should have been doing better than she was. She could load the gun fine, take it apart and reassemble it, the works. He'd been impressed by how good she was at everything... right up to actually firing the gun. Which she could do, she just wasn't a very good shot, unless she had at least two or three minutes to line everything up.

"Stupid eyeballs," she muttered, glaring at the holes peppered all over the home-painted silhouette. Only two had hit anywhere immediately fatal, although quite a lot of them would have caused a long, lingering death.

"Most people blame the gun," Logan grinned. It was nice to know there was something the kid stank at. She regularly kicked his butt in unarmed combat, although he was sure that was only because SHE didn't have all that adamantium weighing her down.

"It's not the gun, the gun works fine," Annie grumbled, scrubbing at her eyes with her knuckles. "I'm just having trouble aiming my eyes."

Logan raised an eyebrow. He and Creed had... at least, he thought they had... an identical problem with their eyes, in that they didn't see close up and stationary very well with eyes that were designed for far away, moving prey. But the target was far enough away from Annie that she should be able to focus on it fine. "Why? Because it's two-dimensional and staying still, not three-dimensional and moving?"

"Partly." Annie's yellow eyes narrowed, her pupils shrinking and dilating as she squinted at the target. They changed shape a bit, too. "I just... see a lot. More than most people."

Logan raised the eyebrow again. "Look, kid, I know you have good eyes, so do me and your dad, but it's not that different-"

"Can you see mass?" Annie inquired, still squinting at the target. "Like, seeing something, and knowing exactly what it's made of and how much of it there is?"

"Uh..." He blinked slowly. "No..."

"Do your eyeballs have a zoom function?" she inquired sweetly, still eyeing the target.

"No, but-"

"Mine do." She fired the gun, and Logan jumped a little. Annie gave the hole in the silhouette's forehead a satisfied look. "It takes me a while to focus properly on where the bullet's going to be after I fire. I should probably stick to hand-to-hand and blade weapons." She handed him the gun and wandered off towards the arena where Kyle and Jonny were hacking awkwardly at each other with dulled practice swords.

Logan blinked.

Annie's turns of phrase were sometimes strange. He wasn't sure if she'd meant that it took her a while to focus on the target in order to fire the bullet, or whether she'd said she could see where the bullet was going to hit *before* she fired it.

* * *

"Poit," Clarice said, picking up her training 'sword' - which was currently a weighted stick - and dragging herself along the path back to the house. She should have remembered how far away it was before letting Annie talk her into one last round. "What are we going to do tonight, Brain?"

"The same thing we do every night, Pinky," Annie said with equal solemnity. "Help make dinner. I hope there's meat."

Clarice gave her surrogate big sister her best eyeroll. "There's always meat," she pointed out. "We live with Sabretooth and Wolverine. Wishing for meat is like wishing for oxygen."

"True." Annie skipped a bit, but only a bit. Even she was getting tired under all the heavy training. "Then I hope there's dessert."

Clarice brightened a little. "There's pudding," she remembered. "I saw it in the icebox this morning."

"Pudding!" Annie crowed. "I love pudding!" Small white wings appeared between her shoulders for a moment, then got sucked back in again.

Clarice giggled, recognizing the reference to Kero from the Cardcaptors cartoon. Cartoons. She missed cartoons. "Are we going to stay here for long, you think?" she wondered aloud.

"I dunno. We might go back to America eventually." Annie mooched along, poking at the ground with her toes. "Or Madripoor, maybe." Sabretooth had unbent enough to tell a few rather bloody stories about the pirate city, and some of the cunning assassinations he'd performed there. "Madripoor'd be fun."

"Maybe." Madripoor sounded kind of scary to Clarice. Living without cartoons wasn't THAT bad.

Annie stopped mid-mooch, lifting her head and sniffing the air. "People," she breathed, eyes narrowing. "A lot of them. With horses and dogs."

Clarice frowned. "Do they have hunting here? At night?" she asked a little nervously.

Annie shook her head. "It's not a hunt. It might be gypsies. Dad says there's still some around, especially back here in the mountains." She started walking again, faster this time, head turning from side to side as she listened and sniffed. "I better tell him. He'll want to check them out if they're this close to the den."

Clarice picked up her tired feet and hurried to keep up. She was tired, but the woods were getting dark and if there were strangers around... "Will he chase them away?"

"Only if they get too close." Annie took Clarice's hand comfortingly. "It'll be okay. Daddy and Wolverine can chase away ANYTHING." She frowned, sniffing the breeze again. "Something about them smells... bad. Wrong." She sniffed again. "Scared. They're scared of something. And it's not us."

Part Three

"I don't like it."

"Neither do I." Creed hunkered down into the leaf-litter a little more, peering over the small ridge at the gypsy encampment below. Normally he would have ignored it - gypsies had been camping in that valley practically forever, and it didn't cost him anything to respect their territory. They always left HIM respectfully alone, after all.

This wasn't the usual group, though. And something smelled... off. Like maybe they had a very sick puma in one of those caravans. But why would they cart around something like that? And whatever it was, it was making some of them edgy. The horses weren't even twitching, though, so it had to be something that had been around long enough for them to get used to it.

Logan growled softly. "Something's wrong," he insisted. "I'm goin' down there."

"If it floats yer boat," Creed agreed reluctantly. "I'll stay up here an' keep watch in case they try to brain you." He'd rather the group didn't know about them yet, but if Logan was going to force a confrontation it was better now, in daylight, where the surprises could be kept to a minimum.

He watched the other man scramble down the hill, deliberately doing it loud and clumsy to get their attention. That was good. You didn't want them to know right away that you could sneak up on them.

Logan got down into the encampment and was immediately surrounded by suspicious, grubby figures. Creed made himself comfortable in the soft dirt, settling in for a long siege. The runt probably didn't know any of the gabble that lot spoke, and they'd be cagey about admitting to speaking more than broken English. They always were. Like Creed, they liked to play their cards close to the chest. He liked that.

Eventually, after a bit of sniffing around and a lot of banging on the side of a small, grubby caravan, Logan handed over a couple of notes to an elderly man and was shown inside. A minute later he was back out, and Creed could see the tense fury in the man's stance even at that distance. He was already moving when Logan waved him down.

Things got quiet as he drew close and they realized who he was. The campsites around here were good, and nobody got moved on, but there was always the unspoken corollary that if they were going to stay good, the big blonde man had to be left alone. He'd only had to kill two overzealous officials and a few gypsies from two different groups before everyone'd caught on. "What's goin' on?" he asked Logan, who was stiff and pale with rage.

"They got a kid in there," the younger man gritted out, looking back at the small, windowless caravan. "Mutant."

Creed raised a shaggy eyebrow, and gave the elderly man an enquiring look. The man shrank back a little. "Furry freakchild. Stupid. Dangerous. Is very sad that our tribe was cursed with it," he agreed, eyes flickering a little. This one understood more than he was saying.

"And make some cash by lettin' folks see it, I bet." Creed looked at Logan, and sighed. Damnit. Fuckin' bleedin' heart loser. He was going to mess up the whole damn arrangement any minute. "How much?"

The elderly man wasn't stupid. "For you, free," he said, smiling ingratiatingly.

Creed snorted. "Not to see it. To buy it," he elaborated. "We got a... collection, ya might say." He kicked Logan surreptitiously in the shins to keep him quiet.

The man frowned at the first two sentences, then smiled greedily at the third. "Two thousand pounds," he said promptly.

"For that, I'm lookin' first," Creed growled, and stepped up to shove his head through the small door. There were no windows, but the open door and a few cracks in the board walls showed him a bare wooden room, some straw piled up in a corner, and a skinny, ugly thing trembling against the far wall. He snorted, leaning back out into the fresh air. "Two thousand for that? Two hundred."

"One thousand five," the man bargained. "It is unique. Good for your collection."

"I already got a boy one looks a lot like it, but with less fur," Creed told him, grinning unpleasantly. "A pair'd be good, but I don't need yours that bad." The thing had reeked, but under the stench it had smelled female. "Five hundred."

"One thousand," the man said firmly. "The expense of raising it-"

"It's scrawnier than a starvin' dog, it's sick, and it probably can't even talk," Creed shrugged, feigning disinterest. "Eight hundred, and I'm doin' ya a favour."

"Done!" the elderly man said immediately. He smiled another ingratiating smile, and Creed muffled a chuckle. He'd probably already tried to pawn the freak elsewhere, and gotten knocked back. Eight hundred pounds would be a windfall for this lot, and they wouldn't have to keep feeding or housing the scary freakthing they'd bred themselves.

Creed pulled the money out of the pouch around his neck, careful not to show how much was in there, and to count it out in relatively small, used looking bills. "Here," he said, shoving it at the man. "And I want a blanket or something to carry it in. I ain't gettin' its stink all over my clothes." A worn horseblanket was brought while the old man counted his money carefully, and Creed thrust it at Logan without looking. "Go get it," he ordered. "And be careful with it."

Logan, who had been growling under his breath, did as he was told. A minute or two later he reappeared, the stinking, scrawny thing bundled up in his arms and held as gently as a newborn baby. Creed made a cynical noise. "We're done here," he told the old man, who was happily tucking away his ill-gotten gains in some hidden recess of his shirt.

"Yes, of course," the man agreed immediately. "Do not let us keep you."

They were hustled out of the camp as quick as winking, and up the ridge to get back to the house. Logan was cursing under his breath in a furious monotone, still holding the whateveritwas tenderly.

Creed looked at it. It had batwing-like ears, drab brown fur, a monkey-like face and round, sad eyes. Which were looking mournfully at him. "It's probably dumb as a stump."

"She," Logan growled. The little creature flinched, and he petted it soothingly. "She's a girl. You know that."

"She, then." Creed shrugged. "You're the one who wanted her. You owe me eight hundred pounds."

* * *

"What is it?" Annie asked, trying to climb over her father's restraining arm to get a closer look at the new thing.

"Don't go near it," Creed said sternly, pulling her back and tucking Clarice more firmly under his arm. "Neither of you. You don't know where it's been."

"She's a she, not an it," Jonny said firmly, squatting beside the bedraggled little creature that was gazing up at him with sad, frightened eyes. "And the lot of you can piss off. You're scaring her." Everyone boggled at him, unused to such a forceful... or indeed, audible... tone from him. He frowned. "I mean it. Sod off."

Creed wandered off with undisguised relief, taking Annie and Clarice with him. Geordi was right behind them, looking just as relieved. Marie and Logan had to be all but bodily pushed out, though. Jonny let Kyle take care of that, staying crouched and harmless-looking. When everyone else was gone, Kyle joined him.

After giving her a few minutes to get used to them, Jono reached out a gentle hand to touch her head. "Hi," he said softly. "I'm Jonny." With his fledgling telepathy... barely more than empathy at this point... he reached out with as many comforting thoughts as he could muster.

Something in the furry girl's head grabbed him and pulled him in so fast he didn't even have time to blink. For a sliver of an instant he was frightened, but then he felt Kyle's hand on his shoulder and relaxed, closing his eyes and letting himself be drawn in. It wasn't meant as a threat, he realized after a moment, just an unformed talent latching onto something like itself.

::Hello,:: he sent cautiously.

#scaredconfusedcurious?#

::Aww, don't be scared,:: Jonny sent as comfortingly as he could, bolstering the thought with the comforting awareness of Kyle's presence, the surety that nothing bad would happen while he was around.

#puzzledcurious?whois?#

::That's Kyle. 'E's...:: Jonny flailed around for a minute, then decided on the description Annie usually used. ::Hunting-brother. Like a littermate.::

#(imageofpuppies)?#

::Something like that.:: Jonny risked stroking the matted fur again. It'd be nice and soft, if it was clean. ::He won't let anything bad happen to us.::

Some of the fear faded. #bigscaryhairygrowly?#

::That's Creed and Logan,:: Jonny explained, carefully attaching mental pictures to the names. ::They're different from ordinary people, like us.:: He drew a couple of comparisons, making a picture of the girl in his mind and showing her the similarities she had with the other feral types. Creed and Kyle were both almost furry, and all four of them had the pointy teeth, and Annie even had slightly pointed ears. ::The big ones take care of us.:: He added a few pictures of hearty meals and warm beds.

#interestcuriositycuriosityselfmonstersadashamed#

::Aww, no...:: Jonny petted her gently, scritching behind one batwing ear. She seemed to like that as much as Kyle and Annie did, rubbing her head up against his hand. ::You're not a monster. You're a mutant, like us. With nice fur.:: He showed her a mental picture of the Beast, with his blue fur and big teeth, adding a feeling of how nice Beast was, and how safe he made you feel.

The new girl snuffled a little, and curled up with her head on his lap. #oldsmellynamedselfMeggan.#

"Your name's Meggan, huh?" Jonny murmured aloud. He wasn't used to talking telepatically, and his head was starting to hurt. So was his chest, for some reason. Maybe he'd been concentrating too hard to breath properly. He petted her gently. "You're gonna be okay now, Meggan. This is a nice place."

* * *

That night, when Meggan had been tucked into bed after all the food she could safely be allowed to eat - she'd obviously been on a near-starvation diet until now - the rest of the group gathered around the kitchen table.

"She sure didn't like the bath," Marie said, twiddling a strand of still damp hair. "I don't think she's ever had one." She wrinkled her nose. "She had *fleas*."

"Poor kid," Logan said quietly. "Any idea how old she is?" he added, looking at Annie.

Annie shrugged, resting her chin on her hand. "Sorry. If she was physiologically closer to baseline human, it'd be easier, but she's so little and scrawny and furry that it's hard to tell. She could be anywhere between Clarice's age and Marie's. Maybe younger."

"What happened to 'eyes that see all'?" Logan jibed, still looking cranky.

Annie made a face at him. "They do. I can tell you how tall she is, how much she weighs, her size to mass ratios... whatever. But I don't think even she knows how old she is, and she doesn't have enough of the normal physical indications for me to tell." She paused. "She hasn't been interfered with in any way, though. That much I could tell. Just neglected." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jonny nod a little. Everyone else was carefully not looking at him. Annie wasn't sure why pretending certain things hadn't happened was what you were supposed to do, but she went along with it. Obviously Jonny had been 'interfered with', as Jean had insisted on putting it, while he was at the facility she'd found him in. And obviously this had caused some kind of trauma. Annie wasn't sure why - after all, *she* hadn't been traumatized - but she'd figured out that primate minds didn't work quite like feline ones. They seemed to have an awful lot of trouble letting go of the past and moving on.

Everyone had gone quiet and awkward, so she just kept talking. "Jonny did pretty good convincing her to trust us," she said brightly. "She didn't bite even when Marie was brushing her fur, and that must have hurt. There were a lot of knots." The silence kept going, and she opted to throw in something nice and controversial. "So whose is she?"

"What do you mean, whose is she?" That was Geordi, frowning in puzzlement. Geordi could always be counted not to understand her, which was nice, because it meant Annie got to talk for much longer without being told to shut up.

"I mean whose is she?" she said patiently. "Me and Clarice are Dad's, and Marie is Logan's, and you're... well, you're kinda Logan's, I guess..." She gave him a dubious look. Marie giggled, and Geordi growled. "And Kyle and Jonny kind of belong to each other. So whose is Meggan?" She gave her father a hopeful look. "Ours?"

"No," he said flatly. "The runt wanted her. He can have her."

"Fine," Logan growled, giving his counterpart a nasty look. "Someone's gotta take care of the kid."

"Yup." Creed grinned. "And it's you. You realize you're probably gonna have to toilet train her."

"Don't be disgusting."

"Just sayin'." Creed shrugged.

Logan growled at him, pushing his chair away from the table and stalking off, presumably to check on the kid, who was tucked up on a couch in the den, since that was the one that had a fire. Annie thought that was nice. Her Dad came and checked on her and Clarice a couple of times a night to make sure nothing had eaten them, and she liked hearing him peek in.

"We should go to bed too," Marie said, giving Creed a dirty look. "I doubt we're going to get to sleep in, even with a new kid around."

"Damn right. The runt's gonna be busy, so I'm taking the rest of you for a nice, healthy run." Creed grinned broadly. "Get yer rest while you can."

All the kids groaned pitifully, and headed for the dorm-rooms.

Annie detoured to peek into the den. Logan was in there, crouched beside the couch, making soft little murmuring growls. Meggan was curled up in a little ball under the blanket, but her thin, furry face looked peaceful. Annie sneaked away and left them to bond.

Behind her, Logan sighed softly, reaching out to tuck the blanket more securely around the kid's thin shoulders. Damnit, he was going to have to work on this disturbing new trend towards soft-heartedness. He couldn't keep finding cute, unwanted little girls with melting brown eyes who obviously needed him to take care of them because nobody understood what adorable little cubs they were and how much they needed to be loved and protected.

He paused, ran that thought through his head again, and groaned. He was really going soft.

But she was so small and helpless-looking. He smoothed the fur on her head. "Poor kid," he murmured softly. "You've had a rough run, huh?" Her eyes popped open when he touched her, but he kept talking, murmuring soothing nonsense while he stroked her fur, and after a while her eyes closed again. She butted her head into his hand a little, then dozed off while he was still struggling not to make the kind of girly cooing noises that would cripple his reputation forever.

* * *

"And this is?" Creed held up a small red and white object.

"Fly agaric," the kids chorused dutifully. "A.-Muscaria-a-poisonous-fungus-containing-the-poisons-ibotenic-acid-and-muscimol-it-is-dangerous-to-all-species.

"Very good." He held up a limp green shoot. "And this one?"

"Bracken." A few eyes were glazing over, but so far they'd all seemed to recognize everything, even if some of them limped on the definitions. "Pteridium-aquilinium-it-contains-several-unpronouncable-toxins-is-very-commonly-available-in-most-cool-climates-and-is-especially-harmful-to-livestock-and-humans."

"Good." Creed wasn't entirely sure how he'd acquired the extensive amount of botanical information he seemed to have, but it was damn convenient sometimes. It was amazing how many people these days would have a dozen bodyguards, extensive security systems surrounding them, telepaths scanning the minds of all who approached, then sit down to a big plate of well-cooked toadstools and bracken-fed steak. "Annnd... this one?"

"Death-Angel-Mushrooms-Amanita-containing-toxalbumin-they-are-very-dangerous-despite-their-innocuous-appearance," the kids droned.

"That's them." He held up a small green leaf. "And this one?"

There was a long pause. Creed grinned. "Oh, come on, you GOTTA know this one..."

Everyone except Jonny looked blank. Jonny snickered. "It's baby spinach," he offered. "It was in the salad we had for lunch today." Jonny hadn't really eaten any of the salad... his appetite was still dropping off alarmingly, although he wasn't losing any weight yet... but at least he'd apparently looked at it.

"Yup. The rest of you still need to work on that 'powers of observation' thing." Creed put the leaf back in the box with all the other samples. Logan was going to give the furry brat a little lesson later. They still weren't entirely sure how much English she spoke or understood, but she seemed to be able to follow what people were saying. "I'm gonna put an identifiable, poisonous bit o' flora in dinner sometime in the next week, and don't think I'm going to tell you where it is before you've eaten enough to get good and sick." That, he believed, was Incentive To Learn, and he was sure it worked much better than giving them sissy star stickers or something equally useless.

All the kids looked suitably intimidated. Creed beamed. This teaching stuff was not only easy, but fun, too. "Okay, everyone go take your shoes off."

"Why?" Geordi asked cautiously. The kid was settling down a bit, lately. Getting to be just slightly less of a pain.

"Because we're going for a barefoot run," he told them. They all groaned out variations of 'not AGAIN!'. Creed growled a little, to show he meant business. "Yer gonna thank me for this one day. Trust me, when you bust outta prison and gotta leave behind everything they gave ya to wear in case there's tracking devices or something in there and you're running through the jungle naked, you're going to be thinking 'Thank god my feet are tough enough that I can run away good and fast'!"

There was another long pause. All of them were staring at him. "What?"

"You sounded just like Annie then," Kyle said a little nervously.

"Yeah." Marie nodded, looking just as nervous. "I think I liked it better when you were mean and taciturn."

Creed blinked.

He looked at his daughter, who blinked right back at him, her rather prominent nose wrinkled with puzzlement. Then she grinned. "I like us being alike."

He felt his mouth curl up in something approaching a genuine smile. "Me too," he admitted.

"Oh, god," Geordi groaned. "Hairy nature-loving bonding. Someone bury me in cheeseburgers and leave me to die."

Creed growled and grinned. "I'll leave you to die in a minute, boy. Shoes off, all of you, and leave 'em in the cabin. It looks like rain."

Geordi groaned even more pitifully. "We have to run in the rain?"

"One more complaint outta you, boy, and you'll be running naked in the rain. Move!"

* * *

"They're too self conscious," Creed said firmly. "I still think we should get 'em used to occasional nudity."

Logan looked a bit scandalized. "I dunno if that's a good idea. They're adolescents, they might..."

"Might what?" Creed said bluntly. "Marie's untouchable, and the other three are still just kids. They ain't gonna get up to anything."

"Might be traumatized or something, is what I was going to say." Logan took a swig of his beer. "They got a whole body image thing going on with it."

"That's why we gotta get 'em used to it now." Creed drained his own beer, and reached for another. "You know they're gonna wind up strapped down naked on an exam table sooner or later. Might as well prepare 'em as much as we can."

They both stared down at the table. Wood. Stains. Big, clawed hands. Creed flexed them absently, watching the claws slide in and out.

"You're right," Logan agreed quietly, tonelessly. "Bound to happen." Creed could hear the hackle-raising tension in his voice. He'd made a guess, based on his own hazy memories of the Weapon X program, and it'd obviously beein right on the money. Logan had regular nightmares, even now, and Creed was banking that it had something to do with the claws. By the reaction, being strapped down naked on an exam table wasn't something the runt remembered fondly.

"We ain't doing them any favours pandering to them." Creed pushed the advantage while he had it, doing his best to make his rough voice sound reasonable and patient. "We gotta put 'em through it now, while they're safe and know it's not gonna go on forever. Otherwise they'll break when it's for real."

"I know." Logan was still looking down at the table, drawing a repetitive little pattern in a small puddle of spilled beer. "What do you suggest?"

That was a good step forward. "Getting 'em used to having to fight and run naked, for a start," he said, sipping the new beer slowly. "Once they can hack that, the other stuff won't be so bad." By 'the other stuff' he meant the subtle games of humiliation and disempowerment that were an integral part of long-term prisonerhood. Logan nodded, and Creed went on. "They ain't great with the hardware yet, but they'll improve. They mostly just need practice now. We need to make 'em practice more. Mostly, though, we need to work on the other stuff. How to get th' information you need. How to work a decent escape. When to run, when to go to ground." He paused for a long few minutes. "I dunno if it's possible to teach that stuff. But I guess we should try."

"Yeah."

"Yeah." It was weird how easily this was all coming to him. Teaching the cubs was kinda fun. There was something about having lots of wisdom to impart that made him feel clever and important. He wasn't used to that, but he liked it.

Then both men frowned and tilted their heads. That muffled thud and scuffle didn't sound like the usual sleep-twitches or nightmares.

There was a thump, and the click of a door opening. Then another door.

"DAD!!!" Annie yelled, panic clear in her voice. "DAD, COME QUICK!"