On The Rocks

---

In the prison

Once Wolverine extracted Rooter's inhibitor, Jubilee stomped on it repeatedly.

Rooter slowly rose from his knees, gasping, hand covering his tiny wound. "You mind warning me before you skewer me with those pigstickers!" He then looked down at his hands, jaw falling slack. "It's back! My power! It's back!" He could feel his ability flow through his body like a current of electricity, ready at his command.

BLAM! A bullet ricocheted off the stone walls, a shot meant for Wolverine, and all three mutants ducked instinctively. Jubilee lit up the dark tunnels with her sparks, revealing three guards. Wolverine leapt for them and landed on one, raking his claws down the man's body.

Rooter pointed to one man, unleashing his power. At first glance, it looked as if Rooter did nothing. There were no special effects with him - until the guard dropped his weapon and groaned, then threw up repeatedly. He fell to the floor, holding his head, the tunnels spinning out of control, making it impossible to stand.

The third guard had jumped for Jubilee, swinging his gun like a club, ready to knock her out. He was ordered not to kill her, lest he be killed himself. Jubilee wouldn't have known of that, so when he swung at her, she paffed him in the cerebral cortex, the intention to kill, just as Wolverine had warned her. He fell on her, heavy, limp, dead. He paffs died away, her arms pinned underneath the large man. The tunnels fell dark.

Wolverine knew it was hopeless to stab the second guard anywhere else but between the eyes - where he couldn't heal fast enough. The damage he had made to the guard had healed over instantly. He managed to jump on the guard's back, and it being pitch black as it was, he made an educated guess at where his target was and drove a claw through his brainstem. The guard fell, Wolverine's aim being true, and the last guard sat clinging to the floor, sick.

In the shadows Wolverine made quick work of him.

---

The sewers


They splashed through the tunnel sewers where they had seen Wolverine's claw marks, past where Jubilee had burned the side of the building. Instead of turning left as they had before, they made a right. The sewers were like a labyrinth, easy to get lost in, its passageways all exactly alike. Wolverine and Jubilee had been effective at leving breadcrumbs - up until this point, where everything stopped.

Scott blasted a chunk out of the wall, marking where they had gone, and continued. The site where they had found the mauled serial killer wasn't far off.

---


The prison's tunnels

"We can follow these pipes two-thirds of the way out. But if you want to get to the sewers, you'll have to turn left at the T section coming up. It's about half a mile off." Rooter panted, his lungs, legs, and powers exhausted.

They had taken care of two more men who didn't fall easily. Rooter and Logan had taken to keeping count - Rooter had two, Logan had three. There weren't nearly as many guards as they had expected there to be - Rooter assumed that the other prisoners were keeping them busy. They had released at least thirty, and who knew how many prisoners managed to release others.

"Great," Jubilee responded to the comment about the distance she would have to run, the sides of her stomach aching as she ran. She was out of shape thanks to her imprisonment, and she didn't hesitate to let everyone know.

Wolverine stopped in his tracks, sniffing. "Hope you two don't mind taking a detour," He then glared. He had identified the owner of the scent. "The good Doctor."

"Doctor? You mean the one who - Oh, Wolvie ..." She didn't even want to remember all of the things that Wolverine had endured under the doctor's curiosity. "What are you going to do to him?"

He crossed his claws, making X's. "Payback!"

---
Half an Ocean Away...

The Blackbird had apparently been out of comission, so Jean and Psylocke ended up having to take 'The Thunder,' a new and relatively small aircraft capeable of breaking the sound barrier, among other things. It had been upgraded with Shi'ar technology, making it the most superior form of transportation next to automic teleportation.

With the superior technology and small size of the ship, the two telepaths were only twenty minutes away from Moscow.

"We're not in range yet, but we should be, soon." Jean said, trying to contact Wolverine and coming up blank.

"Whoever is responsible for their disappearance will have to answer to all of us, if he or she hasn't already." Betsy commented, jaw set. No one messed with one of the Xmen without having to face them all.

---

The prison tunnels


The doctor didn't have a chance. He actually had a scalpel and tried to defend himself with it. He managed one slice across Wolverine's chest, which healed over quickly. The doctor didn't have a healing factor - he wasn't a guard.

Jubilee watched as Wolverine made a strategic stab with his claws, pinning the man between his two claws and the wall, his middle claw still sheathed. The doctor couldn't move. He was stuck. Helpless. At the mercy of his captor. Just as Wolverine had been. He wasn't lost on the irony of it. Neither was Wolverine, and Wolverine was more than able to inflict the same damage that had been inflicted upon him earlier.

Jubilee couldn't let him do that. The doctor was a bastard, but he wasn't a guard. He was worthless and meaningless, and Wolverine didn't need another torture on his conscience. "Don't kill him, Wolvie!"

He pressed his free claw next to the doctor's delicate skin, glaring. "Stay outta this, Jubilation, he didn't torture you." He pressed his claw into the skin ever so slightly, not breaking skin yet, but the threat was loud and clear. "So waddia wanna start with first?" He asked the doctor through narrowed, burning eyes. "Want me to remove your spleen without any morphine and let you watch? Mine grew back thanks to the healin' factor, but you? You don't have one, do you?"

"More reason not to do this, Wolvie! Listen to me! Please! You do this and you'll be just like him!" She was being a hypocrite, she knew that, the way she went on in the cell about all the things she wanted to do to Yvanka. But killing out of neccesity and killing out of vengeance were as different as wine and water. She could forgive herself for killing the guards, but not for killing Yvanka and Indah, and she couldn't forgive herself if she let Wolverine kill this way.

Rooter glanced left and right nervously, on the look out for guards. "We should really be getting on our way," he said, fear evident in his words. He whole body shook with fear. "We'll be found. We'll be surrounded. We have to leave! We can't stay here! We have to keep moving!"

The doctor broke a sweat, eyes wide. He swallowed and stuttered. "D-d-dont-"

"Don't what!?" Wolverine roared. "Don't burn your eyes with a fucking chisel?! Don't cut open your belly and mess with your intestines?! I could try some of that, bub, 'cause I got six scalpels of my own! But I doubt you have any guts to begin with, so what's the bother, eh? Why torture a man unable to defend himself?" He sheathed his claws and threw him across his working table, vials and glasses shattering on impact with the doctor's body. "Ya won't have to worry about me doin' any of that!" He turned to Jubilee and rooter, expression grave and angry. "I may be damned to hell but I ain't gutless!"

The doctor shivered with shock and fear on the stone floor of his work room, watching Wolverine walk away. "Consider yourself lucky!" He said, Rooter and Wolverine taking his leave.

Jubilee glared at the doctor, Wolverine's tortured screams replaying in her head. Wolverine had scared the piss out of the doctor, a puddle of urine having collected under the man. She gave the doctor a low-grade, non-lethal paff and one good kick to the belly. "That's for all the other people you've operated on, you sick little maggot!" She ran after Rooter and Wolverine, her thirst for vengeance temporarily satisfied.

---

Moscow

They landed the Thunder on a stretch of bare ground, not far from where the contents of the sewer poured into a nearby river. Jean agreed to stay with the Thunder, ready to take off if it was needed, and Psylocke left to find Beast and Scott.

Psylocke ran through the tunnels upstream of the sewer, not appreciating the location Wolverine had decided to pull off his disappearing act. "Why couldn't you get lost in the Carribean?" She scolded, trying to keep down the bile that rose in her throat at the smell. She was going to need a bath after this.

She could hear Scott and Beast not far off. "Beast! Cyclops!" She shouted, catching their attention. She caught up with them. "I've come to help. Jean is waiting in the Thunder in case we need to make a hasty retreat."

"Good thinking. We might have to. I heard three explosions coming from this direction," he pointed with his fingers, "it sounds like there is also either rapid fire or Jubilee's fireworks."

They both broke into a run. "We don't know what kind of a foe we're up against yet, so the plan for the time being is to get Wolverine and Jubilee and get out."

---

The tunnels

They had made a fairly successful escape attempt, and things were looking fairly positive, since Rooter, Jubilee, and Wolverine both recognized this area. Apparently, the sewers of Moscow weren't too far off.

Then they turned a corner and slid to a halt, having caught sight of at least ten Guards, guns aimed, blocking their exit.

"There's no way we can fight all of them, Wolverine, no way, no how!" Jubilee shouted in panic. She could paff them all - explode the terrain under them and kill them all - but that would kill her friends in the process, so that was out of the question. So was this it? They get this far, then go back to their cell and get executed for attempting an escape and killing several guards?

Logan sniffed, catching sight of a familiar scent. Was that ...? No, it couldn't be. He had too many run-ins with bad luck for this to be true. Maybe he imagined it? He sniffed again. Aside from the sewers, he picked up three familiar scents - Psylocke, Scott, and Beast. Excitement ran through his body. They were here! It wasn't his imagination! It was a rescue attempt! And by the smell of it, they weren't far off. "'Hope springs eternal,'" he quoted, inciting a quizzical look from Rooter.

"What was that shit you just said, pretty?"

"We aren't gonna fight them."

"*What*?" Rooter asked, now beginning to regret following Wolverine and Jubilee. At least he had a life in the cell. Up here, with those ten guards - and was that five more he saw in the shadows? - all that was up here was impending doom.

"We're gonna run though 'em."

"Are you fucking crazy!? We'll get shot!"

"Yeah, crazy as can be. Hit them with everything you've got, and don't stop running. The sewers are close by, and a few friends to boot! Follow me and keep up!" Wolverine took to his feet from his crouching position and darted for the large sewage pipe he could barely see ahead of him, some fifty feet away. Between him and the exit to freedom were the guards.


---

Moscow

Jean was laying out the emergency kits inside the Thunder, preparing for anything that may happen, when she heard Wolverine's thoughts sift through her head. 'Damn guards are in my way. Get out of the way. Gonna slice ya. Don't get hurt, Jubilee. Keep up, Rooter, we're almost there.'

She sent a thought to him, disclosing the location of the Thunder. ~We're here, Logan!~

~Jeanie, I love ya. Get the engines running, we've got a whole fleet after us.~

Jean telepathically sent out a warning to Scott for a retreat repeating what Wolverine had said, and Scott telepathically thanked her.

---

The border of the sewers and tunnels

He had let out the animal inside him. The beast had graciously taken over, determined to get to the sewers, and god help whoever was in his way. Wolverine let out a howl, impaling two Guards who had open-fired as he ran past. He was shot in several places but didn't feel it, adrenaline flowing too thickly through his blood. Jubilee let loose a series of explosions that set off little earthquakes, shaking the ground.

Rooter screamed as a bullet seared through his shoulder. Against Wolverine's orders, she stopped and ran back for him. She couldn't leave Rooter to die. She grabbed his hand and yanked him to his feet and began running again, the ground around her coming alive with bullets. She had four guards all to herself ... Wolverine was too far away to help ... If they shot Rooter so effectively, why couldn't they hit her?

They approached her, reloading. "We'll let you live if you come with us willingly, with none of those fireworks!"

"Shyeah, right! You are, like, in no position to be making demands!" She pointed to them and let out a mega-paff and watched as they scattered for cover.

BOOM! The entire cavern shook and rocks from above came falling down, threatening to kill anyone caught underneath them. She could hear more men approach from behind and wailed.

Didn't these guys have anything better to do than hunt her and Wolverine? Why was she so damn important to them?? What about all those other prisoners they let lose?! Was it because no one ever escaped that they were willing to give their lives to keep it that way?

"You hear that? It sounded like a - WOA!" Scott shouted just as he, Psylocke, and Beast reached where the sewers ended and the outskirts of the underground city began. Wolverine was running at top speed, claws extended, Jubilee's fireworks exploding behind him. They were being chased by what looked like an army.

Wolverine was running like a demon fresh out of hell, straight at him, several men chasing after. "Shoot to kill Cyclops!" He shouted as another bullet embedded itself into his back. "They got healin' factors!" He finally reached the tunnel. Then he looked around him frantically. Jubilee. Rooter. Where were they? Had they fallen behind? He caught sight of Jubilee, several men closing in on her and the collapsed and injured Rooter.

---

Jubilee was surrounded. There were too many guards. She let Rooter fall, and she fell to her knees beside him, having given up. She couldn't kill anymore. She'd had enough. She had killed at least seven when one was too many. There would be no more.

Turned out that she wouldn't need to kill anymore. A familiar red beam shot above her head, making a loud ZACKT! sound. It downed three guards, and she twirled around to see Cyclops standing tall in front of the entrance. The other guards backed off, realizing they were out of their league with the arrival of more mutants.

"We have her covered, Wolverine! Get to the Thunder!"

Psylocke helped Jubilee to her feet. "You have an uncanny ability to place yourself in the most dire of straits, girl!"

Beast flung the injured Rooter over his shoulder and made his way back to the sewers, Cyclops covering their backs. Once Psylocke and Beast had made it back to the sewers, he blasted the roof of the cavern, then as he backed further into the tunnel, the roof of the sewer line, causing several large boulders to collaps and seal off the exit.

Scott knew it wouldn't take long for the giant-sized men to bust through the barracade, but it would buy them time to get out. They all ran for the Thunder as fast as their feet oculd allow. "Just how did you get into this mess?"

"Don't remember the specifics and don't care to!" Wolverine replied.

"Ditto!" Jubilee shouted.

Jean already had the engines blaring. The craft was ready for take-off. The X-men and Rooter flooded into the craft and slammed the door shut.


Wolverine and Jubilee collapsed on the floor of the craft - not because they had fallen, but because they were so happy to see it. Rooter, on the other hand, had been laid out on the floor by Beast, a red blotch on his old prison clothes.

The craft lifted from the air and took off with a thunderous roar, whipping up dead leaves and grass.

"Rooter got shot," Jubilee explained as Beast inspected the wound. "He fell and I went back for him."

Jean glanced back at the Xmen behind her, catching sight of Rooter. She winced. Not at his wound, because she knew that he would be all right, but at his face. Never in her life had she seen someone that ugly. But she sensed in him a kindred spirit.

Beast grabbed the medkit that Jean had laid out earlier and began his work on him. "Well, Mr. Rooter, I surmise that with my superior medical skills, rest and proper nutrition, you shall be on your way to a prompt recovery." He disinfected the wound as best he could, Rooter complaining in pain as he did so.

"I understood about half the shit you just said, but thanks." He mumbled in pain. Then he leaned back and exhaled. "Tell me I'm dreaming, pretty."

"You ain't dreaming. You're a free man." Wolverine said, letting his words seep into the tired man's body. Rooter closed his ugly eyes and let out a small smile, despite the pain he felt. At this moment, right here and now, he never felt better in his life.

"Pretty?" Psylocke and Cyclops both questioned, their words thick with curiosity and humor.

"What?!" Wolverine and Jubilee both answered, turning to them indignantly.

Cyclops couldn't help himself. "Are you a pretty man, Logan?" Further away, Jean stifled a cruel chuckle.

"Clam it!" Wolverine mumbled, then looked down at Rooter. "We gotta stop this 'Pretty' bullshit here an' now."

Rooter let out a crooked grin. "I'll never stop callin' ya that, Pretty." He winced as Beast's hands trembled with mirth, causing a painful vibration on his wounded skin.

The entire aircraft busted up laughing, even Jubilee, the traitor! Wolverine growled outwardly, but inwardly he felt glorious. They were finally home.

---