Weapon X: Man or Animal

Chapter 22

Scott was an efficient man, but failed one member of his team. The X-Men was created by Professor Charles Xavier to protect humans from the bad mutants and other situations that require a little extra power rather than just armies and SHIELD, cops and rescue teams. Scott knew the every response people would have towards situations. And as the leader it was Scott’s job to look after everyone on his team, make sure they were sane and healthy. That they came back in one piece and with the missions they did at times coming back in one piece wasn’t always a guaranteed thing.

He failed one member, Logan or also known as Wolverine. Why would he call himself the name of an animal when he hated being considered one, Scott doesn’t understand. The man was gruff and rough around the edges. Dangerous. Back before Logan left, Scott would walk around the halls one more time before heading to bed and he would see Logan standing at a window or staring at him steadily and refused to break eye contact first. It was out of character for someone who often came across as loud and gruff to be so quiet and contemplative, normally when Scott sees him he’s usually doing something or back talking someone because the man had to always be busy and doing something. But that night the man didn’t even make a sound even as he walked away after Scott looked away first. Not even a creak in the floor. Scott knew that it shouldn’t have given him a chill that Scott couldn’t shake until morning, but something about it did due to the eeriness of it.

Scott of course made an ass of himself the next day and confronted Logan about it, blaming it on the full moon. Logan retaliated of course; the guy could dish it out just as well as he could receive. The matter was dropped and forgotten by lunch and Scott had Jean to pay attention to, leaving Logan to do whatever it is the man did.

That was a week before the mess at the mission that nearly caused Scott to die. And caused Logan to leave and get captured. The X-Men should have been watching his back, not some two hundred pound psychotic murderer like Victor Creed who failed just as much as Scott did to watch Logan’s back. By the time they got Logan back, he wasn’t Logan anymore.

That was Scott’s fault too, his failure caused it.   

Scott felt like such a child. And because of his own childish behavior, Logan was now stuck in a cage and failure after failure kept building up. It only became worse for Scott when he learnt the truth about how he escaped. Logan the gruff and anti-sociable mutant saved his life and other mutants, the Professor knew this. But never said a single word about it until he had to and that was probably because he had no other choice.

Scott felt so betrayed, so hurt and angry because of it. He wanted to kick the Professor out of this school, he was so tempted to. By the time Scott started to heal from this revelation on how he escaped that horrible place, another incident with the Professor happened. This time it was revolved around using his abilities to supposedly help Logan remember. Remember what exactly? The torture? The betrayal’s? Or the pain? After all the preaching, about never using your powers against anyone unless you absolutely had to, the Professor did in fact go and use his powers.

And it made situations worse for Scott, and probably will be worse for the one on the receiving end of that attention. Scott for once couldn’t blame Victor for being as angry as he was. Scott was too. And as he listened to the Professor’s explanation on what he found in Logan’s mind he found himself even more baffled when it came to Logan and angry at the Professor. He only reigned himself in when a soft touch to his mind and his arm from Jean. She was always the one who he could rely on, even more than his brother who was one of the first students and was in fact an unofficial student.

The second Victor was out of the room Scott turned to the Professor.

“How could you go and do that?” Scott asked, angry and wanting an answer.

“Scott…” the Professor started; unfortunately Scott was one of those kinds of people who can’t really stop when they start ranting due to how quiet and pensive he usually could be. So the Professor couldn’t get more than Scott’s name into the conversation.

“You always told us to never use our abilities unless you were against the wall and there was no other way. There is always another way around a situation like this, another way to help Logan rather than you taking a trip through his mind like it were a damn park.” Scott said, angrily and as calm as he could at once. He was the leader and it was his job to remain calm. Few people didn’t understand how hard it was to do that sometimes, lucky for him he had a psychic for a girlfriend.

“Scott…” the Professor tried again, but it would only fail as Scott continued to rant,

“No. This is unforgivable. This isn’t far in the grey for you. This is far in the black. You of all people should understand the dangers of using your abilities against someone for anything. I read the files Professor, everything they done to him from the first time to the latest stint. His memory was forcefully erased, everything he was before was erased by both technology and a psychic to ensure it was done correctly. Thankfully for Logan, he managed to hold on to a small shred of his humanity the first time. And you, the worlds most powerful psychic goes waltzing around in his mind talking to projections and watching a memory is not right. You know this. It’s wrong…”

“I know it’s wrong, but it wasn’t done lightly. I put a lot of thought into this Scott. I’m aware of what the results could be and I know the trust it would shatter. But I had to find some way to bring Logan out.” The Professor finally said, as calm as he was Scott could tell the man was getting angry and perhaps upset as well.

“Logan the X-Men, your personal weapon that took off because your shaky morals at best couldn’t bring yourself to control him or who he was meant to be if not for the tampering done.” Scott coldly said as he crossed his arms as the Professor managed to get into his wheelchair.

“He is not my weapon I don’t run things like that.” The Professor insisted, Scott wanted to scoff, but kept himself from that.

“Then what would happen if you ever needed someone killed and X-Men don’t kill. Who would you send? Not me. Hank? Jean? Ororo? No, you would have sent Logan because he does kill and can kill and isn’t secretive about that little fact. You needed someone on your team that killed, didn’t you. Your own personal soldier with the freedom to do what you need to be done, but can’t ask us to do.” Scott said as his voice was becoming colder if that was even possible. But it was a sobering thought to have, and one that didn’t help his shattering trust in the Professor.

It was silent after that; Scott knew he hit a nerve and a pretty sore one at that. No one had the time to think as the young girl they rescued, Laura Kinney entered and literally demanded in her calm neutral way for assistance. And Professor Xavier confirmed what she probably came here for.

Scott cursed inwardly. Cursed the Professor, cursed Victor Creed and cursed the situation. He was the first to leave the room and head down the hall. Hank’s blood has yet to be cleaned up. The doors refused to open and he could see the amount of scratches and deep grooves in the door. 'Was she trying to get in there to help Logan or simply just attack Victor Creed? Maybe both.' Scott thought as he closed his eyes and switched the glasses to the visor he kept in his pocket, despite orders to put it away. Switching the setting slightly he fired.

The doors came right off the wall and slammed through the cell Laura was kept in. Unusable at this point and the first thing Scott noticed was the blood. There was a lot of blood and Victor Creed was on top of Logan who was covered with blood, so was Victor, but that wasn’t Scott’s first concern in favor of the angry and struggling feral underneath the man of his childhood nightmares.

“Colossus, remove Victor Creed from the room.” Scott ordered, despite the young man’s injuries he did just that against the obvious will of the struggling man. Scott heard doors open and close as Victor no doubt was locked in a random room to keep him out of the way. He did enough damage here. Scott kept his hand to his visor as Logan stood up, claws out and legs unsteady.

Scott inwardly shivered at the snarl that came from the man, angry and hurt. His whole front was nearly covered in blood and four parallel scratches were still healing on his face making him a more gruesome sight to look at.

Logan took an aggressive footstep closer.

Scott changed the setting on his visor.

Logan’s fists tightened with the second step forward.

Scott aimed and prepared to fire on the third step. However, he never had to fire thankfully as Logan simply collapsed as his eyes rolled to the back of his skull. The blood loss, lack of proper routines and constant fighting in this room no doubt playing a key part, not that Scott was complaining. In fact, he was glad he didn’t have to in essence shoot Logan.

Going to Logan’s side he checked to see how conscious the man was, he wasn’t. Jean stood behind Scott and he didn’t have to be a psychic to know the shock and worry was radiating from her. She always had a connection with him, with his mind due to the complexity of it. Logan might have read the signals wrong, and that led to the flirting. Scott shook that from his mind, this wasn’t the time.

Scott noted that Laura stood at the door watching the situation. Colossus was back in the room, waiting for orders from Scott. Scott made a note to thank the young man personally later, he’s injured and still being an X-Man in everyway.

Now that the situation was considerably calmer, they all had that uncomfortable question.

What now?

~ Man ~ Weapon ~ Animal ~

Charles Xavier, he was a man who prided himself of doing the right thing. Fighting the good fight for the right reasons and that was why he fought against the first best friend he’s probably ever felt connected to. That was why he fought to stop a war, knowing full well that there was a good chance that things would only get worse after that. And they did.

Charles was forced to erase Moira’s memory to keep her from knowing this place only to restore her memory on a later date.

Charles started a school and hides his students away from the world to protect them. Fought against the brotherhood on several occasions and put up an older image of himself as an illusion as he led Scott and other students to their freedom fully. Knowing that there was another mutant who was going to need his help, but willingly left without him. Blocking a dangerous part of Jean away and locking it up like an animal in her mind away from her knowledge.

And now so many years later, past mistakes of not helping that man and willingly make choices that were questionable he was dealing with the consequences.

Charles didn’t follow Scott, Jean or Colossus to the holding cells. He couldn’t stand to. Guilt simply ate away at him for his mistakes, he was positive that he had no other choices. Nothing would get him to budge on that issue. It was for the best. It really was. He had to find a way to fix this. And going through Scott won’t help the matter; the man didn’t trust him for good reason.

Laura seemed to have a foot out the door, on her own choice. She seemed to be coming to the conclusion that in order to figure out things about herself and who she was and what she was. She had to do it on her own, away from Logan and her rescuers. Charles wouldn’t be able to stop her if she decided to leave right now. He already messed up so much as it was.

And in order to fix things. He would have to go through Victor who was raging in the storage room.