Chapter 256
Madripoor never changes.
That's why I came here.
Lowtown squats at the edge of the island like a bad memory no one bothers cleaning up—rusted signs, cracked streets, buildings that look like they gave up aging halfway through. No glass towers. No progress. No future. Just the same dirt, the same smells, the same faces wearing different scars.
Feels familiar.
I sat in the corner of a pub that smelled like cheap booze, sweat, and old regrets, nursing a bottle that barely deserved to be called alcohol. The kind that burns going down and leaves nothing behind—perfect.
An ancient TV flickered above the bar, its picture warped and rolling like it was tired of pretending to work.
"…X-Factor continues to provide elite mutant response services—"
I didn't look away fast enough.
Cyclops.
Beast.
Iceman.
Angel—only now he was blue, bald, with metal feathers gleaming under studio lights instead of real wings.
And Jean.
Alive.
Smiling.
Marvel Girl.
The words crawled under my skin like ants.
I took a long pull from the bottle, throat burning, eyes unfocused. Didn't flinch. Didn't swear. Didn't break anything.
I'd already broken enough.
The bottle reflected my face back at me—older, rougher, half-shadowed. The black patch over my left eye sat there like a bad joke I refused to stop telling.
Patch.
That's what they call me here.
Not Logan. Not Wolverine.
Patch.
A lie thin enough to see through, but thick enough for me.
Funny thing about lies—you don't need other people to believe them. Just yourself. Like an ostrich burying its head in the dirt, thinking it's invisible because it can't see the world anymore.
I don't look at them.
So they can't hurt me.
Madripoor lets me pretend time stopped. That the past didn't keep moving without me. Here, days blur together, nights bleed into mornings, and nothing asks who I used to be.
Forget and move on, I tell myself.
Yeah.
Right.
The TV kept talking. About contracts. About public approval. About heroes turned professionals.
I finished the bottle and set it down harder than necessary.
That's when my nose caught it.
Change.
A shift in the air—wrong, sharp, crawling under the stench of alcohol and tobacco. Boots scraping where they shouldn't. Heartbeats too fast. Sweat that didn't smell like fear until it did.
Here comes the trouble.
I slid off my stool and hopped behind the bar in one smooth motion, grabbing my cup on the way down like muscle memory never forgot its job.
The door groaned.
Wood strained.
Then it burst open.
A group poured in—too loud, too deliberate, too hungry. Guns came up. Someone screamed. Glass shattered.
I crouched low, back against the counter, cup in my hand, listening to the sound of a place about to get ugly.
I sighed.
"Should've ordered another drink."
The door didn't just open.
It announced itself.
Wood screamed. Hinges begged. The frame cracked like it knew what was coming and wanted no part of it.
Men flooded in—eight of them, maybe nine. Military tight. Not Madripoor drunks. Not Tyger's usual trash. These moved like they'd been paid to move, rifles up, fingers steady, eyes already calculating who would die first.
One of them barked, "Nobody move."
Yeah. Sure.
The leader stepped forward, scar running from his ear to his jaw, coat too clean for Lowtown. He looked around like he owned the place already.
"This is Tyger's bar," he said calmly. "Which means anyone sitting here is either Tyger… or stupid enough to die for her."
No one laughed.
No one needed to.
I stayed crouched behind the counter, glass in hand, listening to heartbeats spike. Smelling fear bloom. Old fear. The kind that knows it won't survive the night.
"General Coy sends his regards," the leader continued. "Join us, or die with Tyger."
That's when the pub answered.
Chairs scraped back. Hands dipped under tables. The click of safeties came off like a chorus.
Someone on Tyger's side fired first.
The world shattered.
Gunfire ripped through smoke and screaming. Bottles exploded. The jukebox died mid-note in a spray of sparks. I felt bullets pass so close they warmed my skin.
I sighed and ducked as a body flew over the bar and smashed into shelves behind me.
So much for quiet drinking.
Tyger's boys weren't amateurs—but Coy's men were better. Cleaner. Faster. They advanced in pairs, covering angles, putting bullets exactly where bodies had been a second ago.
I watched it all from the floor like I wasn't part of it.
Not yet.
One Tyger gunman tried to rush the leader. Bad move. He got three shots in the chest and one in the throat. He hit the floor still twitching.
Coy's men started winning fast.
Too fast.
That's when one of them noticed me.
"Hey!" he shouted. "There's one more!"
Another voice answered, sharp. "Take him."
I looked down at my hands.
Claws stayed buried.
No claws.
Not tonight.
They were already stained enough.
I stood up slowly, glass still in my hand.
"Easy, boys," I said. "I just drink here."
They didn't care.
The first bullet hit my shoulder and spun me back into the bar. Wood cracked. Pain flared—bright, honest, grounding.
Good.
I grinned and came back up swinging.
The glass shattered against the shooter's face. I felt bone give under my knuckles as I drove my fist into his nose. He went down screaming, hands to his face, blood everywhere.
Another one rushed me.
Time slowed.
Bullet-time kicked in like a switch flipped behind my eyes. I saw the arc of his punch before it happened, the tension in his shoulder, the way his weight shifted wrong.
I stepped inside his swing and buried my elbow in his throat.
Cartilage collapsed. He gagged, eyes bulging, and I took his rifle and smashed the butt into his temple.
Down.
Two more.
One fired point-blank.
The bullet punched into my ribs and knocked the wind out of me. I felt it tear through muscle, scrape bone.
I grabbed him anyway.
Headbutted him hard enough to crack his teeth. He stumbled back, and I slammed him into a table, snapping it clean in half.
The other one stabbed me.
Knife slid between my ribs like it belonged there.
I looked down at it, then at him.
"Bad spot," I told him, and punched through his gut.
He folded.
The leader shouted orders. Coy's men regrouped, guns coming up again.
I didn't give them time.
I ripped a barstool off the floor and hurled it like a discus. It took one man in the chest and drove him through a window in a spray of glass.
I charged.
Bullets hammered into me—shoulder, thigh, stomach. Each one hurt. Each one healed slower than I liked. Blood soaked my shirt.
Didn't stop me.
I tackled one into the wall and felt the brick crack behind him. Took his pistol and emptied it into another Coy soldier charging from the side.
Click.
Empty.
I threw the gun at his face and followed it with my knee.
Something cracked.
Another tried to shoot me in the back.
Didn't get the chance.
I felt him before I heard him—heartbeat spiking, breath hitching. I spun and drove my palm into his sternum, enhanced strength detonating through him.
He flew.
The leader finally stepped in himself.
Big guy. Heavy coat. Moved like he'd survived worse than this.
He swung a machete.
I caught it in both hands.
The blade bit into my palms. Blood ran.
We stared at each other.
"You don't belong here," he growled.
"Neither do you."
I yanked him forward and smashed my forehead into his face.
Once.
Twice.
He staggered. I kicked his knee sideways and heard it pop. He went down roaring.
I didn't finish him with claws.
I wrapped my hands around his throat and squeezed until his eyes rolled back and his struggles stopped.
Silence crept back into the pub.
Bodies everywhere. Blood pooling. Smoke hanging low.
Coy's men were dead.
All of them.
I stood there breathing hard, feeling bullets push their way out of me, skin knitting back together slow and painful.
Someone groaned.
I ignored it.
I stepped over corpses, grabbed a bottle from behind the bar, and found a stool that still had three legs.
Sat down.
Poured myself a drink with shaking hands.
Took a long swallow.
Life's hard.
*****
The booze burned going down.
Didn't burn enough.
I stepped out of the pub into Lowtown's neon rot and humid stink. Madripoor never changed. Rusted signs. Crooked alleys. Men who thought they were kings of nothing.
Then I saw them.
Tiger-stripe tattoos, leather, gold chains. Dozens of them.
And in front of them—her.
She looked like Madripoor distilled into a woman. Sharp suit, hair slicked back, eyes like she already owned your grave. No gun in hand. Didn't need one. Everyone around her was the gun.
She smiled like she'd been waiting for me.
"Clean it," she told her men.
They rushed past me into the pub. I smelled blood and fear intensify as they dragged survivors out, patched their own wounded, finished Coy's stragglers with clean shots.
Professional. Efficient.
She walked closer, heels clicking on broken glass.
"You did well," she said.
Didn't answer.
"Coy's men were veterans. You broke them alone."
"Was bored," I muttered.
She laughed quietly. "Madripoor is many things. Boring is not one of them."
I walked past her.
She didn't stop me.
Instead, she followed.
"I want you," she said. "Join me. Coy is expanding. I intend to cut him down. You would be useful."
I snorted. "Vacation."
She raised an eyebrow.
"I don't do politics. Or gangs. Or queens."
She studied me like a chessboard.
"You're lying."
I stopped.
She stepped closer. I smelled her scent—confidence. Real confidence. Not bravado. Not fear hidden under perfume.
Dangerous kind.
"Coy thinks he owns Madripoor," she continued. "He doesn't understand the board. He thinks in bullets. I think in inevitability."
"Good for you."
I turned to leave.
She chuckled.
"Then I will tell Coy what happened tonight."
I stopped again.
She leaned in, voice calm, deliberate.
"I will tell him a man from Tyger's pub slaughtered his elite unit. I will tell him that man is my subordinate. He will believe it. Coy hates nothing more than being embarrassed by me."
I stared at her.
She kept talking.
"He will hunt you. He will escalate. He will bring mercenaries, assassins, mutants, anyone he can buy. You will never drink in peace again."
I smelled truth.
Bastard would believe it.
She tilted her head. "So? Patch. Do you still want to be on vacation?"
I clenched my jaw.
"…Name?"
She smiled like she'd already won.
"Tyger Tiger."
She extended her hand.
I looked at it.
Clenched mine around hers.
Her grip was firm. Not submissive. Not dominant. Equal.
She leaned closer and whispered, "Happy cooperation, Patch."
Tyger POV
He had predator eyes.
Not Coy's kind—loud, greedy, stupid. This one looked like he'd seen wars older than Madripoor. A man who survived by refusing to care.
And yet he cared enough to shake my hand.
Interesting.
His grip was strong. Scarred. Calloused. Not a pampered assassin. A soldier. No, something older. More feral.
Coy would love to kill him.
Which meant I loved him already.
"You'll regret this," he said.
I smiled. "Regret is a luxury for the dead."
He walked away without another word.
I watched him go.
Coy would chase him. Coy would push him. Coy would bleed for it.
Patch thought he was on vacation.
In Madripoor, no one is on vacation.
Patch POV
I walked into Lowtown's neon night, Tyger's laughter still in my ears.
She played me.
Didn't like it.
Didn't hate it either.
Coy would come. That was certain.
And for some reason… I felt my knuckles itch.
Guess vacation's over.
*****
## Patch POV
Three days.
That's how long Tyger gave me before the hit on Coy's fortress.
I spent them drinking, listening, and pretending I wasn't planning murder.
Madripoor's underworld had a rhythm. You could hear it if you stopped trying. Guns changing hands. Money flowing dirty. Flesh traded like currency. Coy sat at the center of it all like a spider that forgot spiders get squashed.
Tyger's intel came in pieces—maps, guard rotations, blind spots. She had someone inside. Maybe several someones. I didn't ask.
Didn't need to.
I memorized the compound layout while nursing bourbon that tasted like rust. Two-story concrete fortress. Reinforced gates. Watchtowers. Twenty-plus armed guards. Coy himself stayed in the center, protected by layers of paranoia and automatic weapons.
Smart.
Not smart enough.
Tyger found me on the third night, slipping into my safehouse like she owned it.
Maybe she did.
"Tomorrow," she said simply.
I looked up from my drink. "You always walk in uninvited?"
"In Madripoor? Always."
She placed a black duffel on the table. Unzipped it.
Explosives. Smoke grenades. Flash-bangs. A suppressed pistol I wouldn't use. Knives I might.
"You didn't need to," I said.
"I know." She smiled. "Consider it insurance. Coy has mutants on payroll. Low-level. Dangerous enough."
"Mutants don't scare me."
"Neither does death, apparently." She tilted her head. "But I'd prefer you survive. You're useful, Patch."
I snorted. "Heartwarming."
She leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching me with eyes that calculated everything.
"Tomorrow night," she repeated. "My men create the distraction. You go in through the east wall—weakest point. Find Coy. Bring him to me alive if possible."
"And if not possible?"
She smiled coldly. "Then I'll settle for his head."
---
## Tyger Tiger POV
Patch was broken.
I saw it in the way he moved—too careful, too controlled. Like a blade kept sheathed because the wielder didn't trust himself anymore.
But broken tools could still cut.
Coy had ruled Madripoor's underworld for five years, expanding through brutality and fear. He didn't understand subtlety. He crushed opposition with overwhelming force, making examples of anyone who challenged him.
It made him powerful.
It also made him predictable.
Patch wasn't predictable.
He was chaos pretending to be a drunk.
I watched him stare out the window, bottle dangling from scarred fingers, and wondered what he'd been before Madripoor.
Soldier? Assassin? Something worse?
Didn't matter.
What mattered was he hated bullies.
And Coy was the biggest bully on the island.
"Get some sleep," I told him. "Tomorrow will be loud."
He didn't turn around.
"Always is."
I left him there, silhouetted against Lowtown's neon glow, looking like a man trying to forget he was still alive.
Good.
Angry men made excellent weapons.
---
## Patch POV
The night came fast.
I crouched in shadows outside Coy's compound, dressed in black, face hidden, breathing slow and even. My enhanced senses painted the world in layers—heartbeats, sweat, gun oil, fear.
Twenty-three guards.
Four mutants.
One target.
Tyger's distraction hit right on schedule.
Explosions ripped through the front gate. Screams. Gunfire. Chaos blooming like a flower made of blood and fire.
Guards rushed toward the noise, shouting orders, forming defensive lines.
I moved.
The east wall had a blind spot—too small for most people to exploit. I wasn't most people.
I scaled the concrete in seconds, fingers finding cracks, boots silent. Dropped into the courtyard and pressed against a storage shed.
Thermal vision lit up the compound.
Two guards patrolling the inner perimeter. One mutant—pyrokinetic, based on the heat signature—guarding the main building entrance.
I avoided them all.
Stealth ability active. No presence. No scent. No heat radiation leaking outward. I walked past a guard's back, his heart pounding, rifle sweeping shadows I wasn't part of.
I slipped inside through a side door, hearing sphere expanding. Twenty meters of perfect sensory awareness. I "saw" through sound—two guards upstairs, one in the hallway ahead, three in the command room with Coy.
Mutant approaching from the left.
Speedster.
I heard his heartbeat accelerate before he moved, smelled the adrenaline spike.
He blurred around the corner.
I stepped aside.
Bullet-time kicked in. The world slowed. I watched him overshoot, confusion flashing across his face as his fist hit empty air.
I grabbed his arm mid-motion and slammed him into the wall.
Once.
Twice.
Skull met concrete. He crumpled.
Not dead.
Unconscious.
Good enough.
I kept moving.
---
## General Coy POV
The explosions rattled my compound.
Tyger.
That bitch finally made her move.
I stood in my command center, watching security feeds flicker and die. My men were engaging her forces at the front gate—holding, but barely.
"Sir!" one of my lieutenants shouted. "They're pushing hard! We need reinforcements!"
"Send the mutants," I ordered. "All of them. Burn Tyger's people to ash."
He hesitated.
"Sir, if we commit everyone—"
I shot him.
The bullet took him in the chest. He collapsed, gasping, blood pooling.
"Anyone else have concerns?" I asked the room.
Silence.
"Good. Send the mutants. NOW."
They scrambled to obey.
I lit a cigar and watched the feeds.
Tyger thought she could take me?
I'd built this empire from nothing. Killed better men than her. Crushed stronger organizations.
She was just another corpse waiting to happen.
Then the lights went out.
---
## Patch POV
I cut the power with a knife through the main junction box.
Darkness swallowed the compound.
Emergency lights flickered on—dim, red, useless.
I moved faster.
Guards panicked. Flashlights swung wildly. Someone fired blindly down a hallway, bullets sparking off walls.
I dropped two more guards with quick, brutal efficiency—throat strikes, joint breaks, concussive blows that shut down nervous systems without killing.
Blood still spilled.
Always did.
But no claws.
Never claws.
A mutant found me—big guy, stone skin, fists like sledgehammers.
He swung.
I ducked under and drove my knee into his liver. His stone skin absorbed most of it, but enhanced strength made impact anyway.
He grunted.
Swung again.
I caught his wrist, twisted, and used his momentum to slam him through a doorframe.
Wood exploded.
He roared and charged.
I sidestepped, grabbed a steel pipe from the debris, and swung it like a bat into the back of his knee.
Stone cracked.
He went down hard.
I hit him three more times—temple, jaw, base of skull.
He stopped moving.
Breathing.
Alive.
I dropped the pipe and kept going.
---
## Tyger Tiger POV
My forces pushed hard against Coy's front defenses.
We weren't trying to win.
Just distract.
Patch would do the real work.
I watched from a rooftop half a kilometer away, binoculars trained on the compound. Explosions lit the night. Gunfire crackled like fireworks.
Then the lights went out.
I smiled.
"He's inside," I told my second-in-command.
"How can you tell?"
"Because Coy just went blind."
Patch moved through that fortress like a ghost with a grudge.
Exactly as planned.
---
## Patch POV
I reached Coy's command center.
Four guards outside. Heavily armed. Alert.
I didn't have time for subtle.
Grabbed a flash-bang from my belt, pulled the pin, and tossed it.
BANG.
Blinding light. Deafening noise.
I charged through the chaos.
First guard took an elbow to the temple. Down.
Second got my fist through his solar plexus. Folded.
Third raised his rifle—I ripped it away and smashed the stock into his face.
Fourth tried to draw a sidearm.
I was faster.
Grabbed his wrist, twisted until bone snapped, and threw him into the wall hard enough to crack plaster.
They stayed down.
I kicked the door open.
Coy stood behind his desk, cigar smoldering, pistol aimed at my chest.
"You," he growled.
I stepped inside.
"Me."
He fired.
I moved.
Bullet-time. Eagle-eye precision. Beastial instincts.
The world slowed to a crawl. I saw the bullet leave the barrel, traced its trajectory, shifted six inches left.
It missed.
Coy's eyes widened.
I closed the distance before he could fire again.
Grabbed the gun. Twisted it out of his hand. Threw it across the room.
He swung a knife.
I caught his wrist, squeezed until I felt bones grind, and drove my forehead into his nose.
Cartilage crunched.
Blood sprayed.
He staggered back, gasping, hatred burning in his eyes.
"You're dead!" he snarled. "You hear me? DEAD!"
I hit him again.
And again.
No claws.
Just fists.
He collapsed against the desk, wheezing, broken.
I grabbed him by the collar and hauled him upright.
"You're coming with me."
---
## General Coy POV
Pain.
Everything hurt.
Nose shattered. Ribs cracked. Vision blurred.
The man in black dragged me through my own compound like I weighed nothing.
My guards were down. My mutants beaten.
How?
HOW?
I tried to speak.
He hit me again.
"Shut up."
We reached the courtyard.
Tyger waited.
She stood in the center of my burning compound, surrounded by her people, smiling like she'd already won.
Because she had.
The man threw me at her feet.
I hit the ground hard, tasting blood and dirt.
She looked down at me.
"Hello, Coy."
---
## Patch POV
I dropped Coy in front of Tyger like a sack of garbage.
He groaned, trying to push himself up.
Tyger's boot pressed down on his back, keeping him down.
She looked at me.
"Clean work."
I wiped blood off my knuckles. "What now?"
She smiled coldly. "Now? I dismantle everything he built. Piece by piece. His operations. His alliances. His money. All of it becomes mine."
Coy spat blood. "You... bitch..."
She pressed harder. He gasped.
I crossed my arms. "What about him?"
"I'll keep him," she said casually. "For now. Until I've swallowed his foundation completely. Then..." She shrugged. "We'll see."
I stared at her.
She met my gaze evenly.
"Don't," I said quietly.
"Don't what?"
"Become him."
Silence stretched.
Her smile faded slightly.
"I helped you because you're not that bad," I continued. "Madripoor needs someone in charge. Better you than Coy. But if I hear you turned into the second Coy—if I hear you're trafficking kids, selling people, running the same filth he did..."
I stepped closer.
"Don't blame me for what happens next."
She studied me for a long moment.
Then nodded slowly.
"Understood, Patch."
I turned and walked away.
Behind me, I heard Coy screaming as Tyger's men dragged him off.
Didn't look back.
Didn't need to.
Madripoor never changes.
But maybe tonight, it changed a little.
---
## Tyger Tiger POV
I watched Patch disappear into Lowtown's neon shadows.
Dangerous man.
Principled man.
The worst kind to cross.
Coy whimpered at my feet.
I looked down at him with cold satisfaction.
"Take him to the holding cells," I ordered. "Strip his assets. Contact his lieutenants. Offer them a choice—join me or join him."
My men moved efficiently.
Patch's warning echoed in my mind.
*Don't become him.*
I smiled.
I wouldn't.
I was smarter than Coy.
I understood that Madripoor didn't need a tyrant.
It needed a queen.
And queens didn't rule through fear alone.
They ruled through control.
*****
## Logan POV
The Australian Outback stretched endlessly outside—red dirt, dead trees, heat that could kill you if you weren't careful.
Perfect place to hide.
The X-Men's base sat in the middle of nowhere, courtesy of Gateway's teleportation and desperation. After we "died", we ended up here.
Reese's compound. Abandoned. Forgotten.
Home.
I lay on the couch in what passed for our common room, staring at two objects in my hands.
Left hand: the black eyepatch I wore in Madripoor.
Right hand: my claws—extended, gleaming, sharp enough to cut through anything.
Patch versus Wolverine.
The man who refused to kill versus the weapon that couldn't stop.
I retracted the claws slowly, feeling them slide back into my forearms with that familiar *snikt* that used to make me feel whole.
Now it just made me feel tired.
I closed my fist around the eyepatch, feeling the fabric compress.
"Will he stay like this forever?"
Alex's voice. Havok. Scott's brother. Good kid. Worried too much.
I didn't look up.
Didn't need to see the concern on his face to know it was there.
---
## Storm POV
I stood beside Alex near the kitchen entrance, watching Logan with the quiet concern that had become familiar over the past weeks.
The patch sat in his hand like an accusation.
"Let him be," I said softly to Alex. "Logan processes grief in his own way. He will speak when he is ready."
"And if he's never ready?" Alex asked.
I had no answer.
The Goddess knew I understood his pain. I had loved before. Lost before. The sky itself had wept with my sorrow.
But Logan's loss was different.
That made it worse somehow.
"More importantly," I said, deliberately shifting the conversation, "where did *she* come from?"
I pointed across the room to the young girl currently rifling through our cabinets with the casual audacity of someone who'd never learned the concept of personal boundaries.
Yellow coat. Dark hair. Teenage energy that filled the space like a small explosion.
She'd appeared two hours ago and hadn't stopped moving since.
---
## Dazzler POV
I exchanged a glance with Betsy as Storm's question hung in the air.
Alison Blaire. Dazzler. Former pop star turned mutant freedom fighter hiding in the Australian Outback.
My life had gotten weird.
"We went shopping," I explained, leaning against the wall. "Used Gateway's portal to hit a mall. Needed supplies. Normal stuff."
"Normal being relative," Betsy added dryly.
Psylocke. British. Telepathic. Gorgeous and deadly in equal measure.
I liked her.
"When we came back through the portal," I continued, "Little Miss Energy over there came tumbling out right after us. Gateway closed the portal before we could send her back."
The girl in question was now examining our very limited food stores with visible disappointment.
"She's a mutant," Betsy said. "I sensed it immediately. Pyrotechnic abilities. Plasmoid generation. Fireworks, essentially."
"Fireworks?" Alex raised an eyebrow.
"Explosive, light-based energy bursts," Betsy clarified. "Showy. Dangerous. Very... teenage."
As if on cue, the girl pulled out a can of beans, made a face, and put it back with enough force to rattle the shelf.
"Fantastic," Alex muttered.
---
## Nightcrawler POV
I hung from the ceiling beam, tail curled for balance, watching the chaos unfold below.
Kurt Wagner. Nightcrawler. Blue, fuzzy, and deeply amused.
"Vhat do ve do vith her?" I asked, dropping down to land beside Kitty.
The girl—Jubilation, she'd called herself—was now poking through Rogue's magazine collection with the focus of a detective searching for clues.
Kitty Pryde, youngest member of our team at seventeen, looked at the intruder with barely concealed hope.
"Let her join us," Kitty said immediately. "That way I won't be the youngest anymore!"
I couldn't help but smile.
Kitty had carried the burden of being "the kid" for years. The thought of passing that torch to someone else clearly appealed to her.
"Kitty—" I started.
"I'm serious, Kurt!" She crossed her arms. "She's a mutant. She's alone. She literally fell through a portal into our laps. That's basically the X-Men origin story in a nutshell."
Valid point.
Still.
---
## Colossus POV
"This is no nursery, Katya."
My voice came out harder than intended, thick with Russian accent and frustration.
Piotr Rasputin. Colossus. Currently in human form, standing before my easel, brush in hand, trying to capture the way the Australian sunset bled across the Outback sky.
Art calmed me.
The world made sense on canvas in ways it refused to in reality.
Katya—Kitty—shot me a look. Hurt mixed with defiance.
I softened slightly.
"Ve are hiding," I continued, gentler. "The vorld thinks ve are dead. Ve cannot simply adopt every lost mutant who appears."
"Why not?" Kitty challenged. "That's literally what Professor Xavier did."
"Professor Xavier had a school. Resources. Safety."
"We have Gateway. We have each other. We have—"
"A condemned military base in the middle of nowhere," I finished.
Silence.
Kitty's jaw set stubbornly.
I returned to my painting, adding crimson to the horizon.
This was not an argument I would win.
Katya had a heart too large for her small frame.
It was one of the things I loved about her.
And one of the things that terrified me.
---
## Jubilee POV
These people were *weird*.
Like, capital-W weird.
I'd been in the Australian Outback X-Men base for exactly two hours and seventeen minutes, and I'd already catalogued the following:
1. Blue fuzzy dude with a tail (definitely a mutant, possibly German, smelled like sulfur)
2. Tall Russian guy painting sunset like some tortured artist (muscles for days, surprisingly gentle hands)
3. Weather lady with white hair and goddess vibes (intimidating as hell)
4. Blonde chick who looked like she used to be famous (Dazzler? Maybe? Poster in my room looked like her)
5. Purple-haired British woman with eyes that saw *through* you (telepathy, definitely telepathy, stay away from her)
6. Brown-haired girl about my age looking at me like I was her new best friend (potentially useful)
7. Blonde guy in black shooting plasma from his hands earlier (show-off, but cool show-off)
8. Some Southern chick with white streaks who'd been avoiding me (rude)
And then there was *him*.
Patch guy.
Pirate costume guy.
Sitting on the couch like the world's saddest action figure, staring at an eyepatch in one hand and—
Wait.
Were those—?
I squinted.
*Claws.*
Actual, honest-to-God, coming-out-of-his-knuckles *claws*.
"No way," I whispered.
Metal. Gleaming. Sharp enough to cut through—well, anything probably.
And he was just *sitting there*, looking at them like they'd personally offended him.
The pirate costume made sense now.
Sort of.
If you squinted.
And ignored everything.
"I'm no kid," I announced loudly to the room, because someone needed to establish dominance here. "And who are you people anyway?"
They all looked at each other.
Silently.
Like they were having some kind of telepathic conversation about whether to throw me out or adopt me.
Weird. Family. Dynamics.
I *loved* it.
My eyes drifted back to Patch Guy and his awesome claws.
Specifically, to the eyepatch in his other hand.
"Dude," I said, walking closer. "That is the *coolest* pirate costume I've ever seen. Like, the hooks—" I gestured to his claws. "—are *brilliant*. Are they real? They look real. Can I—?"
I reached out.
---
## Logan POV
The girl moved fast.
Too fast.
Teenage enthusiasm and zero sense of self-preservation.
Her hand reached for my claws—extended, sharp, deadly—like they were some kind of toy.
Instinct kicked in.
I retracted the claws in a fraction of a second, the *snikt* sound sharp and final, and gave her a look that had made grown men reconsider their life choices.
She froze.
Eyes wide.
Stumbled backward, nearly tripping over the coffee table.
Finally.
"Don't," I said quietly. "Touch."
Silence crashed through the room like a physical thing.
The girl—Jubilation, Jubilee, whatever—stared at me with a mix of fear and fascination that I recognized.
Same look people gave me right before they decided I was either a hero or a monster.
I closed my fist, feeling the familiar ache where the claws had retracted.
"Sorry," she whispered.
Didn't sound sorry.
Sounded thrilled.
Dammit.
---
## Kitty POV
I watched Logan scare Jubilee and felt a pang of sympathy.
For both of them.
Logan had been scary when I first met him too. Gruff, dangerous, smelling like cigars and violence.
But he'd also been the first person to treat me like I could handle the truth. Like I was strong enough to be an X-Man.
He'd saved my life.
More than once.
Now he sat on that couch looking like someone had carved out his heart and replaced it with broken glass.
"Logan's not a pirate," I said gently to Jubilee. "And those aren't costume hooks."
Jubilee's eyes widened further. "Wait. Those are *real*?"
"Adamantium," I confirmed. "Bonded to his skeleton. He's a mutant. We all are."
"Holy—"
"Language," Storm said automatically.
Jubilee's mouth snapped shut.
Then opened again.
"You're the *X-Men*?"
Kurt dropped from the ceiling beam with a soft *bamf* of displaced air, landing beside her.
"Vere," he corrected with a sad smile. "Ve *vere* the X-Men. Now ve are just... survivors."
"The world thinks we're dead," I added. "We're hiding here. Regrouping."
"From what?" Jubilee asked.
"Everything," Alex said from the kitchen.
It wasn't funny.
It was true.
---
## Betsy POV
I watched the girl process the information with a telepath's detachment.
Her mind was chaos—excitement, fear, wonder, confusion, all swirling together in a teenage hurricane of emotion.
But underneath?
Loneliness.
Deep, aching loneliness.
She'd been alone for a while.
Running.
Hiding.
Looking for something she couldn't name.
Family, perhaps.
Belonging.
I knew that feeling.
"What's your name?" I asked, gentler than I usually spoke.
She looked at me, and I saw her mentally catalog me as "dangerous telepath lady."
Accurate.
"Jubilation Lee," she said. "But everyone calls me Jubilee."
"Where are you from, Jubilee?"
"Los Angeles. Kind of. I mean, I was *living* in LA, but I'm from—actually, it's complicated."
"It usually is," I said.
Storm moved closer, her presence commanding without effort.
"Can you return home?" she asked.
Jubilee's face shuttered.
"No."
One word.
Absolute.
Storm and I exchanged glances.
Another lost child.
Another mutant with nowhere else to go.
The X-Men collected broken things.
Always had.
---
## Rogue POV
I watched from the doorway, arms crossed, keeping my distance.
The new kid—Jubilee—had been avoiding me since she got here, and I didn't blame her.
Most people did.
One touch and I absorbed memories, powers, life force. Permanent contact could kill.
So I stood apart.
Always apart.
Logan sat on the couch, still holding that damn eyepatch, and I felt my heart break a little.
He'd been good to me. Treated me like a little sister. Trained me. Protected me.
Now he looked like he wanted to disappear.
"She can stay," I said suddenly.
Everyone looked at me.
I shrugged. "Kid's got nowhere else to go. We've got room. Might as well make it official."
"Rogue—" Piotr started.
"She's a mutant," I interrupted. "Alone. Scared. Pretendin' she ain't. Sound familiar?"
It did.
To all of us.
Kurt smiled. "Democracy, then? All in favor of letting Jubilee stay?"
Kitty's hand shot up immediately.
Then mine.
Kurt's.
Alison's.
Betsy's after a moment.
Alex sighed and raised his.
Storm inclined her head gracefully.
Piotr looked at his painting, then at Jubilee, then raised his hand slowly.
"Majority rules," Kurt announced.
Jubilee looked like she might cry.
Or explode.
Or both.
"Wait, seriously? I can *stay*? Like, with you guys? The actual X-Men?"
"Former X-Men," Alex corrected.
"Dead X-Men," Alison added.
"*Hiding* X-Men," Betsy clarified.
"Vhatever ve are," Kurt said with a grin, "you are now one of us. Velcome to the team, Jubilee."
She squealed.
Actually *squealed*.
Kitty laughed and hugged her.
The room felt lighter suddenly.
Brighter.
Like maybe we weren't just survivors.
Maybe we were still a family.
---
## Logan POV
I watched them welcome the kid.
Watched Kitty's face light up.
Watched Kurt's genuine smile.
Watched Storm's quiet approval.
And I felt nothing.
Empty.
Hollow.
The eyepatch sat in my palm like a promise I couldn't keep.
Patch. The man who didn't kill. Who used fists instead of claws. Who tried to be something other than a weapon.
But weapons didn't get happy endings.
They got used until they broke.
I stood, pocketed the patch, and walked toward my room.
"Logan?" Kitty called.
I didn't stop.
Didn't turn.
"Let him go," I heard Storm say quietly.
I closed my door and sat on the edge of my bed, staring at my hands.
Fists.
Claws.
Same thing, in the end.
The world thought I was dead.
Maybe I was.
Maybe Patch was all that was left.
I lay back and stared at the ceiling.
Australia's heat pressed down like a weight.
Outside, I heard Jubilee's laughter.
Kitty explaining something.
Kurt teleporting with a *bamf*.
Life.
Moving forward.
Without me.
I closed my eyes.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow I'd figure out who Logan was supposed to be.