Author's Notes: Sorry for the delay, True Believers. I haven't been able to find too much time to work on this beast I have decided to undertake. Who knew writing an Evolution fic could be such a daunting task if you're not all that prepared? Anyway, I hope this will be worth the wait and hopefully answer some questions, raise more and quite frankly, confuse and annoy you to no end. Enjoy!

---

Dr. Donald Blake took a firm hold of his cane as he glanced through each line of the medical report before him. He heaved a sigh and glanced through the other sheets in the folder the nurse had given him. He came to an MRI printout and held it up against the fluorescent light of the hospital's walk-in clinic, setting the rest of its contents on the nearby nurses' station desk.

"Damn," he muttered.

"Problems, House?" asked a voice Dr. Blake knew all too well said from behind him.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that, Tony." The doctor turned to face the sleep-deprived face of Tony Stark. "You look like hell."

"And you're a ray of sunshine, Doc," Tony retorted. "Those my results?" He motioned to the folder and its contents.

Dr. Blake shuffled the papers and set them aside. "No. Side project. You know how it is, right?"

Tony nodded politely, with a twinge of skepticism in his eyes. "Well?"

The doctor heaved a sigh and produced a folder that displayed, STARK, ANTHONY. He glanced through it and cleared his throat. "The condition is escalating and at this rate, your heart's gonna conk out somewhere between ten and fifteen years," Dr. Blake explained. "Too bad we can't seem to find you a donor. Sorry, Tony."

The young exec of Stark Enterprises sighed in defeat. "Anything else, Doc?"

"Yes, actually." The doctor produced a pair of reading glasses and scanned through the rest of the contents of the report. "You seem to have an instability to your heart rhythm, which is weird because it's not caused by your previous condition. Stress at work?"

"Yeah, I got stress," Tony admitted. "The military wants me to finalize my latest toy for them or else they'll pull the plug and we can't seem to get it to work."

"What about all that crap in the news about S.E. getting out of the weapons arena?" Blake's voice seemed to carry a mix of concern and reprimand.

Tony sighed. "The only way my father would hand over control of the company to me before he retired was that I had to keep and maintain the weapons division. The rest of the company is mine to do with what I wish and if I wish to keep it that way, I have to appease those vultures on the board of directors, who were personally picked by dear old Dad, or else they will take control and throw me under a bus; hence, the military contracts. Is it hot in here or something?" Tony's face began to turn red; his breathing became erratic and he clutched at his chest. He would have fallen over if not for his hand latched onto the nurses' station desk.

Dr. Blake wore an expression of surprise for the longest time. He only returned to his look of mutual indifference when Tony's breathing began to stabilize and the coloring in his face returned to normal.

"Take the day off, Tony," the doctor offered. "Do something to get your mind off work, because Odin knows that it's gonna kill you." Tony fixed him with an odd stare. "My family's from Norway. Deal with it."

Tony sighed and left the clinic with a wave of his hand. Donald watched his friend/patient leave and went back to staring at the MRI printout from earlier. He shook his head after giving it a more thorough examination. According to the sheet, the nerve damage to the leg it detailed was not repairing itself at all and the muscles in the thigh would begin to atrophy. A note taped to the side of the printout, written in rather messy handwriting, read simply:

"Sorry, Dr. Blake."

"Dammit," he swore under his breath. The end of his cane slammed into the floor. Electrical crackling was heard above, the lights flickered and the clinic area of the hospital was covered in a torrential rain. Donald examined his cane for the longest time with a blend of puzzlement and surprise.

A maintenance worker covered in water strode through the clinic. "Sorry, Doc, but the sprinklers are on the fritz again," the worker explained.

---

Donald stopped examining his cane and went about his other duties in the clinic on this otherwise dreary Tuesday morning.

Toad struggled to untangle the last knot in his prehensile tongue. With a final grunt of effort, he got it untied and was finally able to retract it. "Ah, man, I can still taste myself!" he complained. He then muttered, "Wrapped me around a lamppost. Jerk."

"You got off easy," Fred stated, pointing to the babbling, almost catatonic form of Pietro. "I don't think I've ever seen nobody get drenched in that much sludge."

"So, one guy did this to you?" Tabitha said, barely suppressing a smile. "You guys are pathetic!"

They were currently in the Bayville High cafeteria with a load of what the school district considered "delicious and nutritious" piled high on their table. The debate was still out on that statement and it didn't matter much to the human garbage disposal that called itself Fred "The Blob" Dukes from Lubbock, Texas. With a vicious gulp, the massive mutant swallowed half of the small mountain of cafeteria food.

"Hey, we are not pathetic!" Fred asserted. Scattered bits of mystery meat and chunks of what could be considered chicken flew from his mouth. "This guy was freaky bendy like that blue weirdo!"

"And he was able to break off Lance's Jeep's bumper and tie it around your neck?" Tabby prompted.

Fred gulped the rest of his food. "Well...he did bend it around my neck, after kicking me in the back of the head and I crashed into the car's engine block. Hope Lance ain't too mad with me rippin' it off."

"I'm sure he's too busy venting his frustration out on his mechanic right now," Toad interjected, between gulps of mouth wash he somehow had on hand. "I'll tell ya what though, I ever see that jerk again, I'm gonna rearrange his face and drop kick him into the next county. Y'know, when he's not ready and cornered in an alley or somethin'." His voice began to trail off during the last statement.

"I'd like to see you try." Tabby smirked and guzzled down the last contents of her soda. "So, what's this guy look like?" Fred and Toad pointed to an average-looking guy sitting at a table with the other X-Men. Tabby only fixed them with a disbelieving look. "No friggin' way."

"Uh-huh," Fred and Toad asserted.

Rogue found it odd that the Brotherhood was pointing in their direction but didn't pay it much mind. She went back to eating what the school menu identified as a barbeque rib sandwich. What it really was, she dare not think about it. The last time she did that, she didn't eat meat for a week. She eventually gave in when she found herself in the mood for a meat-covered pizza. They were currently one X-Man short at their cramped table. According to Scott, Jean had locked herself in the library to not only catch up with the work she missed since yesterday but to also get everything else due for the week out of the way.

The girl needs to unwind or else she'll come crashin' down, Rogue thought to herself. Hope she didn't hear that.

It was unusually quiet around the X-Men table, until a blonde girl with thick glasses, and recently acquired braces, made her presence known. She huffed and puffed in agitation. "I need to have a word with you!" she demanded.

Peter turned around to face her. "Yes, Ms. Whitman?"

"You gave me a 99.5 on my math test!" Deborah Whitman produced the piece of evidence and shoved it into Peter's face. "I don't know what kind of pull you got with Mr. Thomason and I'm not leaving here until you give me a valid reason for..."

"Decimal point," Peter dryly stated, seemingly not paying attention.

Deborah was clearly stunned. "Explain."

"Number 19. The answer is 17.56, correct?" Peter's voice was flat and even.

"Agreed," Deborah consented.

"So why did you put down 1756?" Peter asked.

The blonde girl's eyebrows rose in surprise and took a quick glance through the indicated problem. She mumbled numbers and operations to herself at a rapid pace, much to the surprise of the assembled X-Men, and found her mistake. She chuckled nervously. "I'll just be going now." She continued to laugh nervously as she beat a hasty retreat to the library.

Evan watched the girl go with a puzzled look on his face. "So, explain to me how you got to be a teacher's assistant. Isn't that usually a senior job?"

"It can be, Mr. Daniels," Peter stated, trying to imitate Professor Xavier, which came out sounding like a bad Patrick Stewart impression. "Because I had scored so high on the math portion of my placement test, it said I was best suited for senior-level math, but due to me not being a senior, and the fact that all senior-level math is booked up, I was given an assistant job until a vacancy occurs or until next year...whichever comes first. Cool, huh?"

"I think it would have been a bit more profound, 'Captain', if you dropped the accent," Scott said.

"Engage sarcastically-charged photon torpedoes, Number One," Peter said, using his normal voice.

---

Mr. Sinister's crimson eyes watched with increasing interest at the sight of one of his subordinates frantically typing away on a keyboard. He watched the typist, a female mutant that only went by Hacker, scan through several pieces of information from various sources on the Internet at a speed he did not think possible. Hacker's skills were limited but her ability to assimilate information, completely retain it and adapt it for other uses is what brought her to Sinister in the first place. When he found out that she was also a technical genius and a world-class computer hacker is what really sealed the deal. She was unique within Sinister's organization in that she hadn't been subjected to any type of mutant enhancement procedures.

Sinister could feel the presence of another in the cramped space that housed several thousand dollars worth of computer processors and monitors. "Everything good to go?" Sinister asked, keeping his attention on Hacker's process.

Harpoon let out a loud yawn. "Everything is on track, Boss. Gorgeous is ready to deliver his package but mine might be a bit difficult. Xavier's no slouch on the home security front. After all he gets his stuff from Stark. If this was Hammer, then no problem. Gonna have to wait for him to come out." The energy-spear throwing mutant then took notice of the young woman typing furiously on a computer. "Uh, whatcha lookin' for, Boss?"

Sinister let out a short chuckle. "Recent information on your mystery assailant."

Harpoon raised an eyebrow. "Any reason why? I mean, me and Hairbag took it to him, y'know."

Sinister's piercing gaze settled on Harpoon's face. His shark-like teeth came into view and the red jewel in the center of his forehead flashed briefly. Harpoon gulped and returned to looking at Hacker work. A tense few seconds drifted by before Sinister finally decided to speak.

"About a year ago, the Daily Bugle began running stories about a night-time costumed vigilante. Sometime in August, the stories stopped. According to so-called eye-witness accounts, he could spin webs and stick to walls." A sneer came to Sinister's otherwise impassive face. "Sound familiar?" Harpoon chose not to speak and instead rubbed his chin. Sinister chuckled lightly and continued to speak. "I didn't put much stock into those stories but given that Hacker once came across a triple-encrypted SHIELD dossier on all of his activities, it made me a fan."

Harpoon seemed to catch on. "Given that ol' Nicky Fury has somethin' to do with a mutant superhero running around the Big Apple, there must be somethin' to it, right?"

"Indeed. He seems to have set up shop in Bayville for the time being. The interesting thing is that Xavier's equipment doesn't register him as a mutant during all the time he was active. Which got me thinking; if Xavier has a new student that has an unnatural mutation that his equipment didn't detect and this vigilante has never been detected by his mutant detector...?" Sinister's voice began to trail off.

"They're the same guy," Harpoon concluded. "Think Xavier knows?"

"If you had a secret identity, Harpoon, would you blab it to the world?" Sinister asked hypothetically.

"Guess not," Harpoon consented.

"Anything else on your mind?" Sinister asked.

"One last little detail, Boss." Harpoon cleared his throat and scratched at his beard. He picked up a folder that laid on one of the computer monitors and gave it a quick once-over. "I understand the need to get rid of Lensherr and Xavier's respective attack dogs, but why drag this guy into the mix?"

Sinister laughed in a not-so-sinisterly way, which sounded even creepier to Harpoon's ears. "As much as I like to play all possible sides against each other, Harpoon, I take an even greater pleasure in making my enemies increasingly miserable and who better than a chatterbox of a psychopath who shares a similar origin?"

"And if this guy is as nuts as you say he is, why send Ruckus? Why not someone like Hairbag or Blockbuster?" Harpoon's voice didn't seem to carry any kind of empathy or sympathy, but it did convey a sense of morbid curiosity.

"Because Ruckus has yet to redeem himself in my eyes after that information leak," Sinister answered flatly. "If he lives, I'll forgive him. If not, we scatter his ashes over the Hudson. Either way, no skin off my nose."

"Mr. Sinister, you are without a doubt, the best boss ever." Harpoon picked up a small box at his feet and left the cramped computer room. He then zipped up his thick, black coat to better conceal the much thicker body armor underneath. As he made his way to one of various exits installed in Sinister’s latest hideout, Harpoon muttered to himself, "I wonder how your job is going, Ruckus?" A sly smile came to his face. "Probably not all that well considering your luck, right?"

---

Ruckus tried to piece together the events that led up to him being knocked out and held over the side of a skyscraper somewhere in Los Angeles by his ankles. His assailant, a masked man clad in a garish red and black costume, had sheared off his long-flowing white hair and relieved him of his expensive purple coat. The worst part of this whole ordeal was that the assailant figured out how the mutant dampener he wore on his wrist worked and reversed engineered it to suppress his mutant power to emit devastating sonic screams instead of just hiding his mutant signature from Xavier's machine.

"What do you want with me?" Ruckus shouted. If his mutant power was in full effect, the side of the building would have been reduced to shattered glass and steel.

"Don't make me nervous," the assailant threatened. "I don't wanna drop you before I have my fun."

Ruckus stared at his attacker, the very man Sinister had sent him to find, and tried to assert whatever authority he had in the situation. "Please, pull me up. I have a package for you!"

"From Xavier?" the masked man asked, much to Ruckus' surprise.

"Uh...no. Someone else."

"Magneto?"

"No."

"Shaw?"

"No."

"Sinister?"

"How do you know about him?" Ruckus asked.

"I know because I know...and this business card I found in that fancy pimpin' coat of yours has his name on it. So, I guess you want me to pull ya up and we can discuss like civilized people?"

"Yes, if you don't mind." Ruckus could feel his heart beat return to normal.

"I would, but that would indicate that I'm a civilized human being. Being a mutant that takes enjoyment in the slaughtering of people for insane amounts of money doesn't exactly make me a civilized human being, does it?"

Ruckus could feel the gloved hands of his tormentor begin to go slack around his ankles. "Do you really want to kill me? I mean, am I really worth it?"

The masked man contemplated that for a good minute. "I drop you, you fall several hundred stories and go splat and I don't feel any different but I lose the package you sacrificed your hair to get to me. You jerk, how dare you use logic to make me spare you?"

Ruckus felt his body jerk as his tormentor flung him up onto the roof he was about to be dropped from. "Was that so hard?" the power-neutralized mutant asked.

"This better be worth it," the assailant said. "I got a building to blow up and make it look like it was done by an arsonist."

Ruckus gulped nervously and indicated to his coat that had been tossed aside. The masked man gave him a penetrating stare, that Ruckus thought was all the more scary given the mask he wore actually conformed to his face’s expression. Ruckus's coat was rifled through in a most barbaric way as the "chatterbox of a psychopath" ripped it apart with his red-gloved hands. He finally stopped when he came across a brown package hidden in a hidden pocket, addressed to a W. Wilson.

"I got mail! Good for me!" The masked man's demeanor took on a more childish tone as he tore through the paper. "Cool! Betamax! Good thing I bought that Betamax VCR off eBay for a dollar. Who's the idiot now, TechnoLoser28?" He let out a triumphant laugh and fired off a few shots from one of the guns strapped to his thighs.

Ruckus took the spectacle in with nervous apprehension, considering that his tormentor for the last few minutes hadn’t bothered to take his gun out of its holster before shooting it. After a few tense minutes, Ruckus cleared his throat. “Well, if that’s all, I guess I should be going.”

“I don’t think so, Francine,” the masked man said. Suddenly appearing before Ruckus, the mutant assassin pistol-whipped him with his recently fired gun. Ruckus fell on his face, eyes closed, and was dragged back over the edge of the roof by one hand. “Deadpool don’t like to leave no prisoners if he can help it.”

Ruckus’ unconscious body swayed in the breeze of the harsh winds rising up the building. Deadpool’s gaze fell to the tape in his opposite hand. His eyes shifted between Ruckus and the tape for several minutes.

“Tape, kill, tape, kill, tape, kill…Ah, screw it!” Deadpool shouted in frustration.

Ruckus awoke sixteen minutes later and found himself tied upside down by means of a thick gauge cable and hanging from a flagpole. He struggled against the cable, which only caused the thick bundling to dig into his skin. An incessant beeping noise got his attention. He looked to his wrist and saw that his power dampener had been reset. A sly grin came to Ruckus’ face. He took a deep breath and emitted a loud, piercing scream. The cable that held him broke down at the molecular level and it snapped.

Once freed, Ruckus fell down the side of the building. With another, lower pitched scream, he caused a series of windows to break and shatter. His fingers snagged on one of the recently created ledges. Ruckus dragged himself into the building. He brushed off shards of glass and ran a gloved hand through his recently shortened hair.

“The things I do to stay alive,” Ruckus said with a hint of disdain.

---

Wolverine gunned his bike around a steep turn, and nearly evaded an incoming SUV. He let out a frustrated growl and steadied his bike. “Crazy driver,” he muttered. “Hmm, gonna have to get the engine adjusted. Seems a little slow on the pickup.” He was currently on a small stretch of highway, just outside Bayville. He needed a chance to clear his head and if Storm could take off for a week in Africa starting this morning, then he could spend a few hours on a highway going nowhere. Besides, he told himself, I need my head as clear as can be when it comes time to test Parker again.

Wolverine’s enhanced hearing picked up a rather odd sound. It was a strange, high-pitched whistling sound. Flashes of blue energy rained down around him, chewing up pieces of the small road. Wolverine pulled his chopper in a sharp skid and came to a stop. The barrage of energy ceased and then resumed with an increased fervor. The feral X-Man extended his claws and took some swipes at the incoming missiles. Upon impact, the spears exploded into bursts of blue fire.

“All right, come out now and make it easy on yourself!” Wolverine threatened.

A dark haired, bearded man clad in a black overcoat stepped over the horizon. “You’re the best at what you do, eh? Let’s see if that’s true.” Harpoon cracked his knuckles and a set of electrified blue spears of energy erupted from the exposed skin on his forearms.

“Anyone tell you that you kinda look like Black Tom Cassidy?” Wolverine taunted.

“It’s the beard, isn’t it?” Harpoon retorted. He launched the spears he had at the ready and Wolverine tore through them with his adamantium claws. “Okay, new strategy.”

Wolverine could feel his claws heat up with each successive strike against the energy lances. He leapt off the bike, ditched his helmet, and charged for Harpoon, a feral growl in his throat. Having quickly closed the distance, the claws on his left hand dug through Harpoon’s coat and tore out a decent chunk of his hidden armor. Wolverine was ready to drop his opponent, but instead opted to stagger backward when he heard a wet sound. He felt a searing pain in his gut.

“Hurts, don’t it?” Harpoon taunted.

Wolverine looked down and saw an energy lance had been shoved through his stomach and was still connected to Harpoon’s arm. A dangerous gleam came to Wolverine’s exposed fang-like teeth. A second lance slammed through Wolverine’s body, just below his ribcage. He could feel the skin in the area begin to boil and singe like a tender piece of meat on a barbeque.

“You really are tough!” Harpoon said. “And here I thought it was all hype.”

“You just wait until I get my claws on ya,” Wolverine threatened, “then you’ll see just how tough I am.”

“That sounds quite painful and I simply abhor violence.” Harpoon had a third lance pierce Wolverine, this time from his other arm and had it tear through his shoulder.

This latest spear had impacted a section of Wolverine’s adamantium skeleton and the heat began to spread to his neck. His skin began to boil and turn an unnatural red coloring.

“You’re startin’ to sweat there, Logan. For someone of your age, you really need to take it easy.” Harpoon plastered his face with a devious grin and cranked up the heat on his spears.

Wolverine growled and with a firm kick to Harpoon’s face, the spears were forcibly removed from his body as their creator tumbled down the road. Harpoon got woozily to his feet and readied another round of energy spears. The X-Man took stock of his opponent and groaned slightly as the wounds in his gut and shoulder began to rapidly heal. The boiled sections of his skin would have to cool down before they could heal.

This guy’s a long-range fighter but if I get too close, he can stick me like a pig, Wolverine thought. So how do I take ‘im down without suffering too badly?

Harpoon swayed dizzily on his feet. Whoa. Either I’ve spent too much energy or that boot to the face did more damage than I thought.

The two mutants charged each other, their respective spiked weapons at the ready. Harpoon felt an intense jagged pain rip through his gut at the same moment his energy lances stopped just short of piercing Wolverine through his chest.

“Y’ever been disemboweled?” Wolverine taunted. “It hurts like hell and it’ll do some strange things to your intestines, that is if you survive.”

“Screw you, X-Man!” Harpoon growled, his spears dissipating. Blood seeped through the hole in his stomach and he felt even woozier. “Whoo, I feel dizzy.”

Wolverine retracted his claws and Harpoon fell to his knees. The X-Man grabbed his opponent by the neck and hoisted him up to his eye level.

“Spill it, pal,” Wolverine said. “Whaddaya want with me?”

“Package for ya,” Harpoon gasped. He produced a small box from his coat and shakily handed it to a confused Wolverine, who gave it a through sniffing. Detected no explosives or hallucinogens on the box, he set it down.

“All that for a box?” Wolverine asked. “Why?”

“Because I’m a cruel and sadistic bastard who gets off on causing people pain,” Harpoon groaned.

Wolverine dropped him and got back on his bike. “If I see you again, I’ll do more than stab ya in the gut. You hear me?”

“Got it.” Harpoon let out a strangled groan as Wolverine sped off on his bike. “Jerk.” He scrambled to his feet and spat out some blood. He pulled a small device out one of his jacket pockets and pressed a series of buttons on it.

A few minutes later, the SUV that nearly hit Wolverine came back up the street. The driver, a young woman with dark, and purple striped, hair, leaned out the window. “Hey baby,” she said in a mildly seductive voice. “Them wolverines are ferocious, ain’t they?”

“Happy to see you too, Arc,” Harpoon said, clutching his side. “Enjoy the show?”

“Eh, it was all right. So tell me, Kody, why should I let you bleed all over my freshly cleaned upholstery?”

“Well, Senorita Sontag,” Harpoon said with noticeable disdain, “if you don’t let me in and have Sinister’s doc do that voodoo they do so good, then I’ll die from blood loss and your work load for this weekend increases. Do you really want that?”

Arc let out a strangled growl through clenched teeth. “Get that bleeding carcass of yours in before somebody sees you.”

Harpoon did as he was told. “You’re a saint, Arclight, you really are.”

The SUV drove away, at a speed that was above the speed limit but not enough to get them pulled over.

---

The Danger Room training session came to a halt on the simple basis that the team accomplished their goals. Wolverine was quite surprised at the results. Parker just might be a team player after all, he thought to himself. Wolverine pressed a button on the command console as he spoke into a microphone. “Congrats, Parker. Get ready for the hard stuff.”

The holographic simulation of a destroyed New York City reoriented itself into the Danger Room’s pristine steel walls. The X-Men slumped to the floor, with the exception of Scott and Peter.

“Looks like you’ll be running training sims with us, Pete,” Scott said, “especially since you didn’t use Evan as a human shield this time.”

“Yeah, well, I think I have a long way to go before I’m recognized as an official X-Man,” Peter replied.

The mutant teens, and the not-so-mutant one, filed out of the Danger Room, stretching, groaning and other activities to loosen their joints and relieve their pain. Jean, meanwhile, wore a worried expression.

“What’s wrong, Jean?” Kitty asked. “You look like you came in second in a science fair or something.”

“Kevin still hasn’t woken up yet,” the red-haired telepathic replied. “He’s been asleep since Friday night and we still don’t know why he came here.”

“Didn’t the Professor say that Kevin will wake up when his powers have stabilized somewhat?” Peter said.

“So, like, what’s your point?” Kitty asked.

“Well,” Peter continued, “since he’s a raw telekinetic, his powers would need more time to stabilize than Jean’s would in a similar circumstance given that he probably has such a massive amount of power at his disposal, considering who he’s related to.”

Jean digested the information and replied with, “You’ve been reading some of Professor Xavier’s books on the subject, haven’t you?”

“Guilty,” the wall-crawler said with a big grin.

---

The silence was beginning to get to Arclight as she and Harpoon trotted down one of numerous hallways in Mr. Sinister’s latest hideout. The damage done to Harpoon was quickly taken care of by Sinister’s crack medical team. The quietness was getting to Arclight and she decided to break it.

“So you’re an American raised by an Inuit tribe because your parents died in a freaky blizzard?” she asked.

“Basically,” Harpoon said. “The way I hear it, the plane went down as we were headin’ home and the local tribe took pity on me. Thus, they raised me as one of their own. Taught me how to fish with a spear and when I turned 16, I left for America. Ran into Sinister two months later. That was about ten years ago. Time flies when you work with people who are more twisted than you.”

“So is it Inuit tradition that you leave home by sixteen?” Arclight asked.

“Nah. The Wendigo showed up and massacred the tribe. I was spared because I didn’t have Inuit blood.”

“What’s a Wendigo?”

“A supernatural creature that can be summoned to the earthly realm to destroy ones enemies by committing cannibalism or some other unholy act,” Harpoon rattled. “I don’t know all the details, considering they didn’t like too talk about it, but I do know that it was a big white, furry creature with a long tail.”

Arclight fixed him with an incredulous expression. “How about we talk about something else?”

“Care to make it quick? My gut is still kinda burning.”

“What the hell is Sinister planning that requires us to attempt to free the Juggernaut?”

“Hell if I know. If I had all the answers, do you really think he woulda sent me after Wolverine just to deliver a package?” Harpoon couldn’t help but laugh.

“Good point.” Arclight snickered. “I wonder if Gorgeous George made out all right.”

“I’d like to think so,” Harpoon said. “After all, he’s a six-foot tall dude made outta tar. What’s the worst that Creed can do to him anyway?”

They came to a door and opened it. A man composed of some strange black and purple gunk stood off to the side and appeared to be putting himself back together again, considering he was missing an arm and his head was split in two. “Bloody animal!” he cursed. “Next time I’ll teach him what it means to mess with Gorgeous George.”

“Sure ya will, mate,” Harpoon said, imitating George’s Cockney accent.

George’s body sprouted a replacement arm and the split in his head quickly mended itself. “Good as new.”

“Nice to know that you survived your encounter, Harpoon.” Ruckus made his presence known, sporting a new, more angular hair cut.

“Nice ‘do, Ruckus,” Harpoon said. “You look a lot less like a girl now.”

Arclight and George burst into loud laughter. They quickly stopped when Sinister suddenly appeared. “We have business to attend to,” was all he said.

---

As night encroached on the X-Mansion, Wolverine decided to take the time and see what his mystery assailant had risked his life to hand to him. He tore through the package, revealing a pristine VHS tape. Wolverine found it a bit odd but ignored it. He popped the tape into the VCR that was integrated into his TV.

“If this is blackmail material, this guy obviously doesn’t know the concept,” Wolverine muttered.

Discordant images broke out on the screen, followed by strange noises. They were high-pitched and caused him to grind his teeth. Wolverine covered his ears but the noise appeared to penetrate straight into his brain. A guttural growl escaped from his throat.

“Is he damaged?” a voice said in his head.

“He put up quite a fight when our boys took him down,” another voice replied. “Nothing too serious, Professor.”

“Then begin the adamantium feed,” the first ordered.

Wolverine let out a blood curdling howl of anguish.