From the center came Stryker's final order—and with it, the Weapon X project's true face was laid bare.
Deadpool. Wade.
Once a mutant who fought with twin blades, he showed an astonishing compatibility with other mutants' powers. After Stryker's "upgrades," he could house dozens of stolen abilities at once. The entire Weapon X program had been built around him. The last step had been to seize Logan's monstrous regeneration and feed it to Wade—fashioning a living weapon that stood above all others.
This time, there would be no repeat of Logan's "accident." From the moment the project began, Stryker had already wired Wade's brain with a lattice of control chips, hard-locking his will so that he would act exactly as commanded.
Only…
Even the morgue-hardened researchers felt their scalps prickle when they saw the "finished" Deadpool. His entire body looked like a patchwork graft: slabs of transplanted skin, crisscrossing black suture lines marking where he'd been cut apart and reassembled, a man made of stacked bricks. His skull was bare and smooth. The face had no brows; the eye sockets were dark and sunken; the gaze was empty. The mouth had been sealed over with skin.
Inside the control room, Stryker watched the fortress feeds and tracked Deadpool's awakening.
"Colonel, some modules are still unpolished, but none of it affects combat," a researcher reported.
"Good. Will he obey?" Stryker's voice was tight.
"Absolutely. There won't be any surprises."
Stryker allowed himself a thin, satisfied breath. From this vantage, he could see Logan and Saitama reaching the mutant prison—Kayla's sister among the captives, Emma Frost. Row after row of cells, some holding only rigid, cooling bodies. Many had died on the table. Those who lived did so by luck or iron will. To Stryker, they were scraps now—he'd already harvested everything he needed and fed it to Deadpool.
"Wade," he keyed in, eyes gleaming, "show me. Kill Logan with your own hands."
Deep underground, the prison's locks clanged open.
Logan and Saitama had already freed everyone they could. A sorry group—gaunt, jumpy, some slipping toward panic after living too long under the knife. Kayla and Logan found each other again as well; the breakup back then hadn't been either of their choice.
Love in the air. Wonderful.
Saitama watched, expression flat, his big bald head practically a stadium floodlight.
"Follow me. Up ahead," Logan said, taking point. Saitama drifted after him. Kayla and a few dozen mutants brought up the rear.
"Hey, man—what's your power? Don't tell me it's just being bald. I do fire, but I need a source," a kid asked, flicking a lighter between his fingers.
"Me? Hm… I guess my fists are just a little strong," Saitama answered, scratching his scalp.
A little strong?
A few of the mutants almost laughed. What kind of superpower was "good punches"?
"You're funny. I'm Scott," said a man in a special visor, tilting his head in greeting.
Mutants were pariahs to most of the world. Public opinion was split, but the mainstream called them dangerous—subjects to be studied and contained. Within mutantkind you had hawks and doves: the hawks saw themselves as humanity's evolution and rightful rulers, the doves just wanted quiet lives. Among their own, though, mutants were quicker to trust. Anyone walking with the man who'd just saved them—Logan—got a bit of that respect by default.
They walked and traded stray words—until Logan raised a fist and the line halted.
A steel gate ten meters high rumbled open. A figure stood in the frame, waiting.
"Wade?" Logan blinked. He'd fought alongside this man before. Now… there was nothing human left in what he sensed. Naked, unfiltered killing intent poured off the figure.
It wanted him dead. It wanted every mutant here dead.
Logan's hands clenched. Adamantium claws slid free with a cold snikt.
And then his pulse kicked—because Wade mirrored him, clenching both fists… and from each knuckle-line, not claws but swords thrust out—sleek, gleaming, metal hard enough to cut the world.
Not claws. Blades.
When Wade had been alive, he'd been a genius with long blades—could cleave bullets out of the air.
"Go. Find another way out," Logan told Kayla and the others, voice abruptly grave.
They understood at once. If even Logan was this careful, they'd be chewed up in seconds. One by one they sprinted away. Kayla's eyes lingered on Logan, then she turned and followed.
The corridor held three figures now.
Deadpool—Wade.
Logan.
Saitama.
"Wade, looks like Stryker finally found a way to shut you up. You can stop now—Wade… All right. Guess we're doing this the hard way. Saitama, I've got—"
"He's dangerous, you know," Saitama murmured, eyes flicking as if reading a stat sheet only he could see. "Teleportation from that John guy. 'Laser eyes' from the visor dude. Adamantium skeleton. Rapid healing. And more…"
Stryker had crammed a greatest-hits list of top-tier powers into Wade's body.
For the first minute, Logan held his own, slipping in and out, trading cuts. Then—
Shlk!
His claws punched through Wade's abdomen. Logan ripped them free—
—and watched the wound knit shut at once as Wade's blade hacked a fan of blood out of Logan's shoulder.
Logan grabbed backhanded—Wade blinked out.
"Infuriating," Logan hissed.
He didn't get to say more. Energy detonated from Wade's sunken eyes—an incandescent beam that raked the tunnel.
The optic blast.
Thunder peeled in the confined space. Logan took the hit full on, howling as he tumbled, the corridor around him shaved flat and smoking. He barely braced to rise before the next attack fell like a guillotine.
Crushed. Dead-even a moment ago, now crushed.
"Saitama… gonna need a hand!!" Logan finally barked, retreating in a stagger toward the world's most bored bald man.
(End of Chapter)
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