Hoi, chummers. This is an Elseworlds Kai and Logan. All the recognizable folks belong to Marvel. Kai belongs to KayJay. Use her without your permission, and there's a large tentacled gentlemen who will proceed to rudely disabuse you of your notions of bodily integrity. Archive_OK if you have permission, else ask. !MST_OK. POP_OK. Kai and Logan and Arkady: Mindcrimes by Redhawk erl_redhawk@yahoo.com Kai put the pedal to the metal on her Jeep, taking the corners at a nearly suicidial speed. She grumbled to herself, as the radio droned on endlessly about somebody's heart that went on. "So I burnt the last of the eggs in the house, and we have no bread, and we're out of milk. Jean makes it sound like this is a crisis on par with the Sentinels." she fumed. "Like I really wanna be runnin' errands at _this_ hour of the night. The darkness, the speed she was travelling, and a particularly dark stretch of road prevented Kai from noticing the otherwise obvious tell-tale traces of the Claymore landmine that had been attached to a fuse rod buried in the road, precisely at chassis-height for her Jeep. When the front bumper of her Jeep made contact, Kai had only a fraction of a second to react before the explosion ripped her Jeep to shreds. She leapt out of the Jeep, perpindicular to her previous line of travel. Even so, the detonation scorched her legs and back, and caused her normally graceful leap to turn into a world-class belly flop onto the cold, hard ground. As her ears rung and her head spun and something in her chest cavity blazed out pain, her sole thought was "Dammit, I burned the groceries" before the men in black full-body combat fatigues came to retrieve her burnt, broken body. "Is she unconscious?" one asked to the other in perfect Russian. The other shrugged before using the toe of his steel-tipped boot to flip her over. Kai's sudden grimace was the only warning they got before she grabbed their legs, aiming for Achilles' tendons, wrenching both men back and away from her. Their shouts of pain compensated nicely for the burning in her ribcage, and her world-class headache. Flipping herself back to her feet, the darkness obscuring her foes, Kai immediately faded back deeper into the night. While the blue jeans and sweater she was wearing weren't exactly combat togs, a simple modification she had made to the groins of all her clothes allowed her near-total flexibility with her legs. A nearly silent cough was her only warning before the taser's darts penetrated her sweater and dug their cruel hooks into her flesh, sending thousands of volts into her. She stuttered a yell as the electricity dug its way through her, then gave voice to a full-blown scream as another two sets of darts slammed into her, at shoulder and midriff. The last thing she saw was another two big men advancing on her position with most unsavory looks. -- Kai was lulled into wakefulness by the sense of _cold_ that was permeating her body. She was apparently lying, quite nude, on a steel slab in an otherwise empty room, and the ambient temperature couldn't have been any more than 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Luckily for her, a set of plain utilitarian military-style clothes was lying in a heap next to her, along with Russian-issue army boots in her size. Her body felt and moved just as well as ever, which told Kai that she'd been here for a good long while -- long enough for the burns, the impact, the taser-shock, and the drugs to wear out of her system. She dressed quickly, muttering to herself about pervert Russian kidnappers and her totalled Jeep and how much she really, really hated freezing her ass off in some kinda freaky room. She had to admit, though, that it was kind of them to leave her something in just her size. A blindingly bright light flared on the opposite side of the room, and when the light dimmed to tolerable levels, a huge blonde-haired man stood in the far corner of the room. He couldn't have been an inch shorter than six and a half feet tall, with long blonde hair sloppily pulled back into a topknot. Why is it, she idly wondered, why the bad guys come in extra, extra-large? "Good evening, Kai." rumbled the big man, who was dressed in a bigger version of the Spetznas working clothes from earlier. The only difference was the embossed hairband with the Greek letter Omega on it. "It is time for you to experience pain, I'm afraid." the big man said in a calm tone. "We need to attract the Wolverine, for I have unfinished business with him." With his words, the big Russian launched into a run, charging Kai with clearly murderous intent. Kai thought to herself as she threw her body violently to the left, to avoid a chalk-white fist the size of a brick. A foot-sweep she never saw coming violently upended her world, and only a breakfall and roll kept her brains from decorating the cool steel floor as Arkady stomped. "All right, you." she hissed through clenched teeth. "I dunno what you want, or why you're tryin' to kill me, but this ends now." Arkady grinned at her, showing a row of perfect white teeth framed by chalk-white skin and a sheaf of long fine golden hair as she scrambled to her feet, reassuming her wary fighting stance. "It's simple, really." he said, resetting his position relative to the smaller woman. "You're my means at getting to your lover." Kai laughed for a second, never taking her eyes off the big Russian mutant. "You're an idiot." she snarled. "You really think you can get to him through me? Dream on!" Kai feinted right, then rushed left, a quick jab followed by a scything hooking kick. Arkady blocked the jab with his forearm, but the kick blasted into his ribs. Kai was almost certain she'd heard one creak. Arkady's reprisal was quick and brutal. An elbow to Kai's face fanned so close that she swore she could smell his sweat, along with some sickly-sweet rotting smell, but a quick turn kick had her seeing stars as it in turn cracked across her side, snapping ribs like sticks. she thought through a haze of blood-red pain. But she wasn't going to have the time to recover. Arkady hissed in pleasure as two shiny metal tentacles burst forth from his forearms, writhing like a serpent pit, hungry for blood. Kai staggered away from the big man, trying to put some distance between him and her. The pain had calmed down to the point where she could straighten into a sort of a crab-crouch, and she used it to skitter away. She never saw the first tentacle, only felt the shearing pain as it cracked against one of her legs, driving her to her knees in a blinding flash of pain. she thought angrily but her abused body, even with the symbiont working overtime, refused to obey her commands. But the next tentacle wasn't so kind, piercing her torso right through her floating ribs, and bursting through her chest like that thing from Alien she'd seen once. was her last thought before unconsciousness claimed her into a sea of oblivion, the strong scent of sickly-sweet death cradling her. Arkady withdraw his tentacle from the shattered body of the woman, his expression one of nearly orgasmic excitement. From high above, an antiseptic voice floated down. "Very good, comrade. Prepare the girl for transfer." Arkady nodded brusquely as his tentacles slammed back into their forearm sheathes, and he collected the limp, bleeding, unconscious form before him. "You will not enjoy what is to come." he muttered to her before the men in white coats came to take her away. -- Kai's return to consciousness was accompanied by extreme pain, a lingering sickly-sweet smell in her nose, and a bone-chilling cold. And the pressure against her mind that was more than just the pain of her injuries. Kai was reminded of nothing so much as greasy fingers caressing her mindshield, probing for her most intimate thoughts. She shivered, from more than the cold. Her hands were chained high above her, the rough manacles abrading the flesh of her wrists. Her legs, too, were chained to the floor, with maybe a foot or two of slack. "Ah, Miss Kai. You are conscious, yes?" a voice from seemingly far away asked. "We have some questions for you, nothing too onerous." "Fuck off and die!" Kai spit, wincing at the movement of her still-broken ribs. "Still so charming, I see. I cannot help but wonder, my dear, if you will still be so charming once we've cracked your mind like an egg, yes? Or will you do what you did before, and try to burn down Lenin's Tomb?" Kai thought to herself, then winced as a greasy mental finger poked into her mindshield, coming close to her thoughts. Back in the hidden observation booth, a meter peaked a reading before settling back to its normal curve. "She's fighting us, Colonel. Her mindshield is impressive." Behind the tech, a circle of a half-dozen soldiers sat, an obscene mental helmet obscuring their entire heads and linking them all by a pulsating fiber-optic cord. The Colonel paused before nodding. "Increase output another 25%, and concentrate on stimulating her pain receptors. Pain alone may make her more pliable, da?" -- Kai was left in complete darkness, to shiver, curse, and let her flagging symbiont repair the damage to her body. "Goddammit." she shivered. "That fucker busted my goddamn knee! ALWAYS the fuckin' knees! What IS it with these people?" she swore, letting her anger build, letting it wipe away the pain, the helplessness. Despite herself, she shivered at the thought. In her current state of mind, even an indirect reminded of her rough treatment at Victor Creed's hands was enough to affect her. (Spike, Colonel! We've got a wavering in the mindshield! We'll be ready to reinsert in 5.) Kai shivered again as the goosebumps up and down her body constricted painfully. She was just beginning a set of _very_ pleasant thoughts about warn sultry tropical nights when a near-blinding spike of pain echoed through her head. Her howl echoed off the walls as the mindbenders came back, ripping and shredding their way into her mind. Inside her mind, a exquisitely familiar figure stalked across her mind, a vision in yellow-and-brown. "Hiya, girly." Victor growled. "Come back fer some more?" "You're not real, Victor. I'm wise to this shit, and I'm not exactly thrilled." she spit back, despite her best efforts to keep her mindvoice nice and level. "I won't let you fuck with _my_ skull any more." "Ooh." Victor taunted, producing her old katana from nowhere. "You remember this, don'tcha? Means a lot to you, donnit?" With a quick movement, her katana shattered into a thousand shards, each one reflecting a piece of Kai's soul. "This don't mean shit. Honor, nobility, sacrifice. What's it get ya, girly? Raped and left fer dead?" Creed squinted, then, and studied her closely. (Contact's wavering. There's something big in there, something we can use, but we can't get at it!) Kai winced at that particular memory, but then her back stiffened. she thought to herself. A casual glance at her sword's shards, and her blade reformed, bright and as shiny as the day she was awarded it. "You'll never know what something like this means." She then seated herself in sanzen, the sitting bow, and bowed to Victor. "Get the fuck out of my mind." Victor howled, as he disappeared, leaving Kai a moment of blessed peace before the pain came back, quicker and harder than before. -- In her cell, Kai winced as her injuries flared like a blowtorch, nearly causing her to scream with the acid in her mind. she thought fiercely, the sweat breaking out over her body. The mindfingers caressed her mindshield, probing her weakest points, dancing over her barely-shielded psyche. Kai's body convulsed as she retreated into her mind, to keep her secrets safe. The mental pressure intensified, feeling to Kai not unlike being caught in a pounding being administered by Colossus. Her body's wounds, just barely healed over, broke open, and hot red blood spilled down her front, soaking her fatigues with her own blood. In Kai's mind, unbidden, floated an image of Logan. He strode across her mind, and Kai couldn't help but watch him, his squat, muscular body, his animal's grace infusing his every move. (Contact! We've got a crack in the shield! Refocusing, now!) Logan turned to Kai, with a quick grin that she'd die before admitting that she liked. He slid a hand down her cheek, and the pain in Kai's body faded to a tolerable dull ache. When he looked into her eyes, against all reason Kai shivered. (Empathic contact as well, sir! We've got body-response in the 40th percentile and climbing. Psychosomatics are online and responding within theorized norms.) From deep inside Kai, a voice screamed that this was wrong, that it wasn't happening. Kai told it to go fuck itself. She was here, with Logan, and that was all that mattered. "I love ya, darlin'." he nuzzled into her ear. "With you, I got what I need ta keep it all together." She shivered, a hand going to touch her locket briefly. She inhaled deeply, smelling the heady scent of musk, sweat, and the unquantifiable _something_ that was Logan. Why hadn't she ever mentioned how much she loved that smell? In her mind's eye, she flashed to a particularly lazy morning when she'd put on Logan's flannel, and surrounded herself with his scent. (We've got her, sir! Resistance approaching zero on the empathic front, telepathic resistance down to 20% of profile. She must really love the guy.) "Want ya ta share some things with me, darlin'." the Logan in her mind whispered, as his hands caressed her back. "I want ya ta tell me about the files you stole from the Russians." The voice inside Kai got a little louder, and it was making it hard to _feel_ Logan in her arms, to feel the fuzzy warmth coursing through her body. But it wouldn't be quiet. "The ... files?" Kai asked fuzzily. "Three Eyes has 'em." "Three Eyes?" Logan asked, puzzled. Why was he so puzzled, Kai wondered. He knows of Three Eyes. "Tell me about Three Eyes, darlin'. Tell me all about 'em. Who'se got the files?" From deep inside of Kai, Darius's voice came blazing through her mind, washing away the comfortable sensual fog like one of Wisdom's hotknives. "REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE, KAI!" boomed through her mind, breaking the mindlink and rudely returning her awareness to her shivering, bleeding, broken body. (We've lost it, sir. Lockout. We've got to give her time to recover, to reconstruct the pathways.) -- Kai's breathing rattled in her blood-soaked chest as her tenuous hold on her hard-fought sanity finally began to slip. Inside her head, she gibbered. Behind the monitor, Arkady smiled thinly as he studied Kai's gently swaying form. "She is broken." he commented to no one in particular. "Now we bring in Wolverine." The Colonel in charge swallowed nervously, and clicked on the _Send_ button on his display. "It is done. Now we wait for him to come to us. Pass the word to the Spetznas." Inside of Kai, a stern voice said, quite simply, "Your will is strong. You will bend like a reed. Remember what you've been taught, what you have fought for." she wondered hazily. She got no response, as her hold on consciousness fled. -- Logan kicked his cowboy boots up on the desk and took a swig of his fifteenth cold brew of the day as he waited for his email program to load. "What's this?" he wondered, as his email came through. "Russia? Who the fuck is sending me mail from Russia?" A double-click later, the half-drunk beer flew across the room as his seat swivelled wildly before returning back to stillness. -- Logan pulled the chute tight to his body as his friend Harry piloted the antique DeHavilland Mosquito. "You sure you wanna do this, my friend? Russia ain't exactly real friendly right now." "Something I gotta do, Harry. It's important." "It's your funeral, Logan. Need me to do pickup?" Logan nodded once before he moved to the jump doors. "Finnish border, two weeks. Be there. And no hitchers." The door slid open, and Logan leapt out with a snarl. -- The night was cold, clear, and crisp as Logan slipped over the wall to the Kremlin. So far, so good. No guards, none that could stop _him_ anyone. He had to constantly remind himself to keep it together, to stay frosty until he found her. He slipped inside during a three-second pause in the guard schedule, and wormed his way deeper into the complex, staying to the shadows, the air ducts, and the side-corridors. As he wormed his way deeper into the complex, he finally caught a whiff of Kai's scent through the cold. Pain. Misery. Confusion. And a sharp tang of ozone that Logan couldn't quite place. Not that he cared, anyway. A technician scurrying between labs died agonizingly as three bone claws ripped through his chest. A Spetznas guard's number came up as a bone-knife raked across his throat, then his corpse thrown into a conference room. Logan sniffed the air again, as a too-familiar sickingly-sweet charnel house scent wafted across his nostrils. "Arkady." he snarled to himself. Logan threw caution and stealth to the winds as he marched down the corridor. Anyone unlucky enough to cross his path died. Spetznas, KGB, Red Army, anyone. Dead. Killed via a broken neck, a bone claw through the eye, a quick punch. Logan walked into a large chamber, where the scent of Kai was particularly strong. On the far side of the room stood Arkady Russovitch, AKA Omega Red. "Wolverine." he hissed, metal tentacles slithering out of his forearms with an obscene sucking sound. "Time for you to die." "Get over yourself, asshole." Logan growled. "I just want Kai." "The woman?" Arkady laughed. "She's dead." The only outward sign of Logan's reaction was the throbbing of a vein in his neck. "You'd better hope not, Russkie. Because if she is, there ain't no place on this planet you can hide in that's gonna save you from me. If she's dead, yer gonna suffer for decades." Arkady laughed as Logan struggled to overcome a sudden wave of weakness, and the scent of death poured from the chalky mutant. "I feel your pain." he hissed in pleasure. "I need your pain. We have played this game before, you and I. Perhaps now it shall end forever." Logan snapped his claws from his hands with a mental command, and rushed Arkady. The madness in his eyes, the fury contorting his figures, spoke all he'd need to say. A deadly metal tentacle swung at him, to be sidestepped. The other burrowed in straight for his skull, but a duck and roll forward avoided that, and a brutal strike of Logan's claws towards Arkady's hamstrings and femoral arteries instead clanged harmlessly against the taller man's metal-laced skeleton. Arkady bled, oozed really, from the deep cuts in his legs. With a roar, Arkady brought his fists down to Logan's head like a pair of sledgehammers, and only a quick roll saved Logan from having his brains decorate the floor. A savagely brutal low hooking kick clipped Logan's head, causing him to see stars for a second. Arkady chucked roughly, a damning rumble in his chest, then his tentacles dove in again, dancing and weaving like snakes preparing to strike. A metal tip burrowed across Logan's arm, and another cracked against his ribs, but Logan's claws cut into Arkady again, gashing along the ribs and cutting off a sizeable chunk of blonde hair. Logan swayed again as another wave of death-spore washed over him, and several of Arkady's cuts began to close slowly. "You cannot defeat me, Wolverine. You lack the power. Your claws are pathetic, your skills feeble. Surrender now, and you will be united with your lover in death." Logan only allowed a feral grin to cross his face as he leapt, and a claw-strike across Arkady's face threw the big man backwards, arms thrown up to defend his face. Logan finished the contest buy burying three claws deep into the Russian's chest. Logan screamed his triumph, sounding nothing quite so much as one Victor Creed. His blood screamed through his veins, his senses besotted with death and blood and sweat and pheremones. Eventually, he calmed down enough for his rational, thinking mind to take over, and Logan trotted after the fading trace of Kai's scent. -- In her cell, Kai moaned uncontrollably to herself. Inside the control room, the circle of neurally-linked telepaths and empaths slid into her mind, analyzing the way she thought, recording it all for posterity. "Do it now." the Colonel said, as the lights in the room dimmed, and Kai screamed for an eternity before even her symbiont couldn't keep up with the damage to her vocal chords, and she lapsed into a hoarse panting mimed scream. "It is done." said the lead empath, as the lights returned to normal. "No telepath or empath is going to be able to come anywhere near her mind now without her completely losing all her normal behavior constraints. We couldn't get the imperative in deep, her mind is too well-protected. But it would take a team of telepaths a month to undo what we have wrought here." The Colonel's lips twitched into what might loosely be termed a smile. "Excellent. Dismantle this facility and back up your data. We're evacuating in fifteen minutes." -- Logan ripped open the cell door that separated him from Kai, and rushed to her side. "Kai? KAI! Goddammit, Kai, talk to me! Give me a sign, darlin', c'mon goddammit!" Kai's head lolled, as the massively scabbed chest was nearly blue with loss of blood. Logan stripped off his jacket, after picking the locks to her manacles, and wrapped her tenderly inside, chafing her skin to restore circulation. "I'm gonna get ya somewhere warm, darlin'. Yer gonna pull through." Logan put his fingertips to Kai's throat, seeking a pulse. Nothing. He quickly put his face to hers, seeking a feathery breath across his sensitive nose that would tell him she still lived. For an agonizing instant, nothing, then a fine, pain-soaked breath floated across his nose. With a howl, Logan threw her over his shoulder, and darted for the door. Unknown to Kai, a single tear dripped from his rough-hewn face and splashed against his bundled jacket. -- Erik Larson -- redhawk@deeptht.armory.com "There is something feeble and a little contemptable about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dare not face this thought! Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not real, he becomes furious when they are disputed." [Bertrand Russell, "Human Society in Ethics and Politics"]