|
  |
Desolate.
That's the only thing that anyone could describe this endless wasteland. The sky was filled with reds and purples, while the dust beneath their feet swirled with the hot wind that carries through. There was a group of them, Logan at the helm as if he were their Moses and they his followers. Jean at the back carrying baskets of water that orbited around her like the sun, even the few within her hands.
Some of the desert dwelling animals were with them, Camel's to carry their things. A few children belonging to the mutants who seemed too tired to carry them upon their backs hauled the bags that were with them as well.
This was the last of humanity. A gaggle of mutants that were being hunted by something.. far.. far worse..
"Uncle Logan!" One of the kids cried out. "Uncle Logan?! Can we stop? Mama's tired! She fell!"
The woman, the mutant, had wings that used to flutter and gleam brightly, now they were dried up flaps of skin. And her own features were hollow..
Jean immediately drops the water that she carried, taking a smaller canteen to quickly rush and kneel by the woman. She too, looked hollow. Worn..
"Logan, we can't go any further. We need to make camp. Please.."
*
Logan stands at the front of the caravan, walking in steady steps. The sun had beaten his skin into almost a leather. His head is wrapped in cloth, some of which he tugs down to uncover his mouth, looking back at those who'd followed him into this hell. His fault, his responsibility. He'd been the one to try and lead them.
"Awright, darlin'," he says. He knows they should keep moving, if they want to stay ahead of the Reavers, but he can't be the one to push them into the ground. If he has to fight to protect the camp, then that's what he'll have to do.
"Set things up. I'll secure the perimeter," he says to Jean, squeezing her shoulder as he walks past.
*
Jean gives a tight lipped nod as she carefully feeds the woman the water. It was going to be pure hell. Pure hell. She just knows it. The woman accepts the water as people begin to huddle, they were scared. The only two fighters left were Logan and Jean, and even she has seen too much to even be considered as such.
The sun would go down soon, but for now they were out in the open. Ruined buildings were around them, and only one of them with enough cover to give them a bit of shade.
"Over here.. come on kids.." Jean says tiredly, carefully helping the woman to her feet, slinging her arm around her shoulder as she bears the weight of it all. A slight whistle is cracked from the redhead as she tilts her head towards Logan in the direction of the building.
This is where they'll go.
This is where they'll set up camp.
*
Logan nods towards Jean. She never wasted her powers to talk to him anymore. He missed the sound of her in his head, but there was no sense wasting it. The energy was better spent on other things.
He flares his nostrils. Oil. Smoke. The faint hum of motors in the distance. The Reavers were close, closer than he would've admitted to them. He'd have to try and meet them, cut them off, before they got too close. He couldn't risk any of the kids getting caught in the crossfire.
"I'll be back," he tells Jean, his voice rasping and flinty as he walks into the waste.
*
Logan has partially disconnected.
*
There wasn't even a smile to go along with his departure. The days have grown long, tired and cold since they were out on this journey to save the rest of their kind. Whatever it was in between them was gone. Now it was just the job. Emotions that she kept within was deadened. Perhaps it was the tragedy that happened years ago..
…where…
..Jean and the others met with..
The sound of static erupts through the narrative, soft voices in an unknown language was heard. It was clear that they were speaking to someone. And it was clear that Jean herself carried that same language, though hers was much harsher. And in a yell.
'You'll never get away with this!' Jean is translated saying.
But there was laughter.. laughter..
"Hello.." The soft voice in his head speaks finally, after a long.. long.. period of silence. It was Jean. Jean who began to settle the woman, men, and children into a space of where they can be safe from battle.
"They're coming, aren't they?"
*
He found them quickly enough. They were coming directly, some laughing, some grim. All trained for death. More metal than man. And every one of them armed to the teeth.
Logan burrowed under the sand, burying himself like a scuttling crap, lying in wait. By the time the first motorcycle rolled near, he was almost nothing but an animal. He couldn't think when he fought them. There were too many, they were too powerful. He had to kill them and he couldn't hesitate.
*SNIKT*
He bursts from the sand and hits the first cycle, bone claws popping free of his hands and slamming home into the leader of the pack. He missed his adamantium at times like this. But he'd make do. He'd survive. He always did.
He just had to make sure Jean and the others survived with him.
*
It was a clear slaughter. Logan had the upper hand with a sense of his smell, but there was something else that was looming. It wasn't only the reavers, but some thing that was created from something else. Perhaps it was a mix of genetics that had gone bad, one of those horrible batches of DNA that happened to get loose once the creator died.
Their slick, grey bodies moved through the muck of the building, chowing down upon bone, bug, and any form of meat that they could get their hands on. They had one eye, but that eye itself almost looked like a thing that would devour the soul if you let it.
They began to crawl along the buildings, and the first to notice it was Lacey..
The little girl who senses animals and beasts more quickly than she would a human.. and her twin?
She was the girl that let out the scream that sounded like a klaxon alarm.
*
Logan hears the scream, even from the distance. It's hard to fight through the bloodlust to do anything about it, to even care. He had been so intent, so focused on the Reavers, he hadn't imagined a threat could come from anywhere else.
He cries out as gunshits rip through his belly, that momentary distraction leaving an opening for one of the few Reavers left standing. Logan backhands his claws against the man's throat, sending him down in a gout of blood.
Logan had to finish them and hope Jean could keep the others alive long enough for him to get back.
*
It was easily heard as well as smelled. Blood immediately fills his nose, not that of his own. But he stayed with these people. Smelled their sweat, often their tears. So he would know, he would hear the quickened beats of their hearts. The way their feet scuffled. The screams and shouts until..
Everything begins to light!
Brighter than Logan has ever seen, or close enough. The mushroom cloud of where they were at the beginning illuminating the near dark area with renewed vigor of the sun. Fire begins to roll through the ruined neighborhood, as a rain of debris falls upon Logan's area.
Debris in the form of blood. A part of an intestine. A finger…
*THUD*
The head of a fire scorched Jean that rolls by, her eyes burned out.. the look of shock remaining upon her face, though claws riddle her cheeks as well as a bite mark upon her chin..
*
He kneels in the desert, covered in gore and oil. He sees the fire, smells it. He hears every scream, the sizzle of flesh. When Jean's head hits teh ground next to him, he throws back his head and he howls, howls until his vocal chords tear. His vision goes red.
And then green, static, flickering. Back in the real, the impossible, the alien. And he tears from the machine again until the electricity runs into him, stunning him, enough to kill a normal man a dozen times over, whatever it takes until he stays down again, smoke rising off his brutalized form.
He would heal. He always did. His keeper were starting to hate him…and wonder if he was worth the trouble.
*