"Let's do this," Logan said as he looked at the others. There they were outside Penvensey Castle, a place looked after and maintained by the British Heritage group the National Trust, but it was also a secret safehouse for the Weird Happenings Organisation, and inside was their target, Dallas Riordan, the heroine known as Citizen V.

"How do you want this played?" asked Pete.

"Minimal casualties," Logan said. "These people are in the wrong place at the wrong time, no need to kill them because of it. Doesn't mean we can't bust them up a bit though."

"Just like the old days," Pete said, as he thought back to his time with Black Air. "We used to just go in and rough them up because we could then as well."

"The rougher the better, huh lover?" asked Kate and Pete gave her a wink.

"Knock it off," said Jessica. "We've work to do."

"I've got them," said Nate. "I know where they are."

"You lead the way," said Logan. "We'll be right behind you." X-Man nodded and he floated through the grounds of the castle towards where they needed to go.

"Hey!" said one of the commandos that guarded the entrance but a venom blast from Spider-Woman made sure that he didn't say anything else and he lost consciousness as he hit the wall. WHO were prepared for a great many things, but they weren't prepared for an assault by an X-Men unit...

In the background, some way from the action, he watched them. He had his instructions, and more than that he had a few scores to settle himself. He had tracked them from the Hellfire Club to where they had been based, and he knew that very few people would have found them, but he was one of the best hunters around, and that was why people hired him. There was also the added bonus of being pretty much invisible to simple psionic detection. He'd hung around the X-Men Omega base before they became X-Corp and he'd surprised both incarnations when he told them that he'd been around a while.

They'd thought he was dead, but he'd lived. His healing factor was greater than anyone could have guessed. The only thing he knew was that although he didn't have the adamantium anymore, he didn't need it. He never really had - he was faster, stronger and deadlier than any of them and though he'd been beaten by Logan the last time they fought, he knew that this time would be different.

He hadn't been prepared for Logan then; he'd though him to be the same prissy runt he'd been for a long time, but not any more. This was the Logan he had known when they were in Team X, before he got a conscience. This was a Logan who fought hard and dirty and was capable of being as cold and vicious as he'd ever been. Yes, Logan was a darker, more malevolent man than he had faced, one not bothered with honour and decency but armed with a supreme confidence in himself and what he was capable of.

He looked at him smiling thinking that this is how it should always have been between them, watching as they made their way inside and he could hear the voice inside his head, the one that had repeated itself over and over.

"You know you've always thought you were Logan's father? How's this for irony - he's yours. I'm yours."

That was the thing that had kept him alive after Joseph had ripped the adamantium from him, that was the thing that had given him the will to survive. The taunt of Wolverine and Victor Creed was determined that things would end and that he would stop his father and put paid to the voice in his head. When they'd got their transport to Sussex from London, he tagged along to make sure he got his chance. Yes, he'd become a better person, thanks to the rehab of the X-Men, but there were some things that were primal, that needed doing.

This was one of them and he followed them in.

"So what's the deal, doc?" Dallas Riordan asked as she looked at Leonard Samson.

"We've made good progress," the gamma enhanced psychiatrist said. "You're coping with the trauma well enough, and I think you'll be able to be amongst other people soon enough."

"You mean other men?" she said, knowing she had been hostile towards the doctor and any other man who had come near her, Fury's interrogation techniques still haunting her.

"Your hostility to me has been overcome," said Samson, gently as he looked at her. "That was a good start and we've made progress, as I said."

"Shame it's gotta come to an end," said a feral voice and they turned to see the Shadow X-Men.

"What's going on here?" asked Samson, knowing that things had not been right and he had seen the news where Wisdom and Shadowcat had joined Hyrda and he assumed that the others were with them as well.

"Unfinished business, Doc," said Wolverine. "Lady's gotta be taught a lesson, and anyone who get's in the way'll get it too."

"Do you have any idea who I am?" Samson said.

"Yup," said Logan, "an' I ain't impressed."

"Then give it your best shot," said Samson and Logan smiled.

"Five on one, bub..."

"Four on two, daddy."

Logan turned and saw that X-Man was on the floor, a massive gash in his back where Sabretooth's claws had cut him open and Creed licked his claws.

"Taste's almost as good as Cable..."

"You take Samson and the bitch," Logan told the others. "Creed's mine..."

"Works for me," Wisdom said and he threw several hot knives forth at the giant before them, but Samson was fast and he dodged the attacks easily enough, only to be met by a venom blast from Spider-Woman, which staggered him slightly allowing Shadowcat to kick out, hitting him with a nerve strike. Samson winced as he went down on one knee, but he had been in a great many fights, before and after his encounters with gamma rays and it would take him a moment to shake this off.

His body was highly resistant to attacks from projectiles and other things and if the girl hadn't been as precise as she had been there'd have been no effect to her blow and now they came at him, the bio blasts irritating him, the hot knives hurting him, managing to pierce his gamma enhanced hide due to the intense heat and Samson slammed his hands together creating a shockwave that threw them to the floor and he made himself stand up.

His priority was making sure they didn't get to Dallas, because he wasn't sure she was ready for a combat situation. Ever since her capture by Hydra she hadn't worn the costume of Citizen V, but they had made sure it was about, because that was going to be the final test - to see if she could put the uniform on and once more adopt the identity of Citizen V.

"Okay," said Samson as he looked at the mutants. "Now we get serious."

"Yeah, because a bloke with green hair says that with such authority," said Pete as he fired his hot knives but Samson moved, pivoting his massive bulk on one hand and slamming his feet in to the Englishman and sending him across the room and slamming him in to the wall. "You'll have to try better than that," said Pete standing up, but then he fell over as the impact caught up with him.

"How's that?" Samson replied and then he protected himself from the attacks from the women.

"Damn it," said Maverick as X-Force waited in their office aboard the Helicarrier. "This waiting is getting on my nerves." His fingers wrapped on the table.

"We're waiting for the results of the meeting with Doom," said Siryn. "Until then, we don't know what we're going to get assigned."

"If he is Victor Von Doom," said Raven. "Ah dunno, there's something about him Ah just don't trust."

"From all accounts he saved Excalibur when they were in Latveria, so who cares," said Lydia, who was watching the news reports of what was happening in Genosha. It was her home and now, thanks to the announcement by Justin Hammer that he was gunning for Magneto and in effect all of her country, she was worried, just as she was worried for Pete and Kate. "I just hope that what he says enables us to save the world."

"Or reality itself," said Maverick. "It's the waiting around though…"

"Well, you're not one of the big brains," said Teresa. "None of us are, and it's they who'll figure out what we need to do."

"It's not that though, is it?" said Marcus.

"No," said Maverick. "Ever since we lost Pete and Kate, we've been less than we should be. We had one active mission and we needed Captain America and Iron Man and we still almost lost. Black Air took us apart, the Hellfire Club almost did… I don't know what's wrong with us. Maybe X-Force isn't working…"

"You really think that?" asked Lydia. "When we thought Pete had died, we did well enough. When I was injured and Pete was out of action, you guys did well enough, and then you didn't have Shadowcat."

"I know," said Maverick. "I'm just not sure what the point is anymore? Why do we do what we're doing? What does it get us? Are we anything more than an X team sponsored by SHIELD, because we're not having much effect."

"And you want to get out there and prove we're still capable of fighting the good fight?" said Lydia.

"Something like that," Maverick said. "I've lost so much of late. Elena's missing, Isabel's dead, Chris isn't speaking to me these days. Kate's gone to the dark side, Logan too. I've got very little left, and…"

"You're feeling old?" said Siryn.

"Age suppression factor aside, I am old," said North, looking at her. "It's catching up with me. I've escaped death so many times, survived the Legacy Virus. Maybe it's time I called it quits."

"You really think that?" asked Marcus and David North nodded.

"Maybe David North should die and Christoph Nord goes home and lives the life he should have lived…"

"Been waiting for this a long time," Creed said as his claws flashed against Logan. "No more hidin', no more pretending, just you an' me like it's always supposed to have been."

Logan said nothing, avoiding the strikes of his oldest, deadliest of foes and thrusting his own claws shining towards him. Creed's body wasn't in the best of shapes, the extraction of the adamantium had taken it's toll on him, but he was still strong, fast and powerful. Logan had fought people like that before and he was still here, after everything that had happened, and he could feel in the back of his mind that this is what the Shadow King wanted, that he wanted his 'brother' to suffer.

"Say something, runt," Sabretooth said, wondering why his father was silent. He wasn't usually at a loss for words in these battles. "Cat got yer tounge?" Then Logan exploded in to action, fighting like a madman, as if the beserker rages he had claimed to put behind him were released in one mad moment and the inner darkness reigned free and Creed was being pushed back by the savagery of the assault. His attacks came as one and Creed tired to fight back, but Logan's attacks were methodical, clinical and Creed's blows were nothing to him and Logan stopped, his claws retracting back in to their housings in his arms.

Sabretooth tried to stand but his injuries were severe but that had never stopped him before and he went to work, attacking hard and fast but Logan always seemed to be out his reach and then suddenly Wolverine grabbed him and turned his strength against him and Creed was on his back and he felt something snap on the landing as his body fell hard against the broken door and he couldn't move.

"I loved your mother," Logan said, looking down on his son. "If I'd known about you, then maybe things could have been different."

"Too late to get all fatherly now, Pops," Creed said. "Too much history."

"Damn right," said Logan and he placed his clenched fist against Creed's forehead, feeling the hot breath on his face as he looked down. "You survived one claw through your brain, let's see if three makes a difference."

~SNICKT~

"You people are beginning to annoy me," said Samson as he struck back. Spider-Woman was the main annoyance because of her strength, which meant she was more resilient than the other one, who seemed to stay as intangible as possible to avoid the blows and as she became solid to strike he attacked, and it meant that she changed her state again which let the Spider-Woman attack. They weren't hurting him any, but they were causing him a problem, and he was glad that he wasn't fighting their other member, because he knew how deadly Wolverine could be. He had spoken with Bruce Banner about him, and he had heard the stories of the X-Man.

However he'd also heard of the other guy he was fighting and the long enmity between them and even though Warren had told him how he'd tried to reform, he'd also turned on the X-Men, and whether it was due to Psylocke or not, there was still the idea that Sabretooth was an animal at heart and perhaps he would revert to type after all. It was something he would have liked to study, if he had been given the chance, and with no disrespect to Xavier who had tried, perhaps he had been the wrong man for the job.

Leonard Samson on the other hand may have been the one who could have helped, but now they'd never really know, but Samson heard the claws come out and he knew that there was only one winner and now he needed to divert his attention and so as the Spider-Woman struck he was ready and he grabbed hold of her, not trying to swat her away and as she fried her venom blast at point blank range, as he guessed she would, he moved with incredible speed and the blast struck Shadowcat, who for a moment seemed disorientated as if whatever was wrong with her was momentarily shaken, but before anything happened Samson could feel the change as the atmosphere around him felt different and he looked across to see that the one who had been taken down by Creed earlier was back on his feet.

And he looked very upset.

"Enough!" he said and Samson could feel his mind slipping away and there was very little he could do against the psionic assault and he began to try and remember all the theories he had been taught when he had become a psychiatrist but there was nothing he could do and then he felt his mother calling him down for breakfast.

"Coming Mom!" he shouted and he leapt out of bed, thinking he had to get ready for school soon.

"Are we done yet?" Nate said, looking around.

"Think so, kid," said Wolverine as he retracted his claws. "How you feelin'?"

"I hurt, but I've hurt before," he said. "Now let's do what we came here to do and get the hell out."

"Couldn't agree more," said Pete, as he staggered woozily to his feet. "Glad you took him out," he said. "I'm tempted to kill him…"

"Leave him," said Nate. "At the moment he thinks he's six years old and there's not going to be many shrinks who can help him…" He gave a smirk. "Physician heal thyself."

"Which just leaves you," said Pete, looking at Dallas who had fear in her eyes. She'd been petrified since the attack started and now the fear was crippling her. "Time to send the message, eh boss?"

"Oh yeah," said Logan. "Nothing personal, darlin', but the boss doesn't like leaving anything undone." Dallas didn't say a word and as they went to work on her, she didn't even scream…

"Welcome back," said the Shadow King as his people returned, teleported in by one of the mutants from the former Apocalypse Dawn. "I trust the battle went well?"

"Even better," said Pete. "Logan did for Sabretooth, the Hellfire Club's been trashed, Doc Samson's not going to be bothering anyone for a while and Citizen V… Well, she's not going to be in the hero biz for a very long time."

"Good work, my X-Men," the Shadow King said. "We must be ready."

"For what?" asked Shadowcat.

"For the last challenge. Xavier's people…"

"At last," said Logan. "When?"

"Soon," said Farouk. "The time is not right, but I can sense things are going to change very soon. Yes, very soon indeed."

"Ladies and gentlemen," said the voice of Forge over the SHIELD communications systems. "We have a situation developing across the world. We are expecting the imminent arrival of seven demi-gods, intent on the enslavement of humanity. Their only weakness is that they are half human and with luck the heroes of the world will be able to defeat them. Our role will be to ensure that the rest of the world is protected from the battle that is sure to follow. Good luck and Godspeed."

"Okay," said Maverick, "that's it. The call to action."

"You sure you're okay?" said Terry.

"I'll have to be," Maverick said. "We've people to save and at the end of the day that's what we're about. Let's go…" The others looked at each other, wondering if what Maverick was doing was simply a brave face or if he'd picked himself up? They fervently hoped it was the latter…

"Oh good God," said Alistaire Stuart as he entered the room. Sabretooth was lying there, not moving. Doc Samson was drawing on his notepad and Dallas Riordan… "Oh God."

"What is it?" Sapphire asked as she entered and she gasped. "Oh no…" Dallas's eyes had been burnt out, her limbs slashed and wounded and on her forehead a V had been gouged, the legacy she'd adopted branded on her forever.

"Tell SHIELD we blew it," said Alistaire as he looked at her. "We blew it big."