Several people gasped audibly in shock, as they watched the old man bleed out in front of them. Jean didn't even bother to step forward, she knew, like Logan did, and like Charles did too, that there was nothing she could do. His punctured aorta bled him dry in minutes, and as his body gave a final spasm as the last vestiges of life left him, Logan felt a weight lift from his shoulders. He carefully handed Niamh back to Marie before he turned to the rest of the X-Men.
The room exploded in colour and motion as Cyclops aimed a direct beam at Logan, John instantly teleporting Marie out of the room as Logan, and several others, ducked out of the way of the force beam. Logan rolled and launched himself at Cyclops from a different angle, before the younger man could register his change in location. His fist met the face of his attacker, with force, fracturing his cheekbone as Cyclops fell to the floor unconscious.
"When he wakes up you tell him that's the only warning he's ever gonna get, he attacks me or mine again, I will kill him." Logan growled to Jean.
Marie and John walked back into the room then, now that the threat was dealt with, they were followed by the braver of the curious faces watching from afar. Once Logan was satisfied that Marie was unhurt, he turned back to the matter at hand. While he was discussing the school, and keeping it open with Ororo and Jean, Victor was sending out go orders to the stand by teams ready to finally begin taking down the labs.
"Why are you leaving the school intact?" Ororo asked uncertainly, she had been sure, when Logan began detailing Xavier's dodgy dealings, he would want to shut everything down, get rid of every iota of the man's legacy.
"Because this school is necessary," Logan replied, "Where else are these kids going to go?"
Ororo paused, surprised at the compassionate response, she hadn't expected that from a man who could, and would, murder without hesitation. "If Xavier's double dealings were what was protecting the school though, how do we keep the students safe now?" she asked next.
Victor stepped forward, a stack of files in hand, "The purge of the labs is beginning as we speak," he said as the sound of helicopter rotors firing up could be heard from outside. "The labs we know of, all ninety seven of them, we have planned to shut down within three months, we are expecting it to take longer though as we expect them to start moving once we start taking them out, we've managed to stop word of the hit on Stryker from getting out so far but once they're down a dozen or more locations word is going to get out. This is detailed information on every base, it's all ready to go public, you hold onto this, use it as your bargaining chip if anyone comes calling, but make clear you don't have the only copies. We'll be outing each base as they're purged, raids are being live streamed to the internet from bodycams too. Would you be willing to take in any rescued mutants?"
Ororo and Jean shared a shocked looked, as they reviewed the substantial and detailed information in front of them. They had no idea the problem was this big, was this everything that Xavier and Stryker had been hiding from them!?
"Uh, yes," Jean finally answered, "Any way we can help let us know," she said softly.
"Best way you can help is to stay out of our way to be honest," Victor replied, as his phone began to softly ping as updates began to flood through to him. "You need to see something," he commented a moment later, asking where the nearest television was.
One of the kids led the way to the Rec Room, where a huge tv was currently displaying some brightly coloured cartoon. He grabbed a remote, giving a once over to all the buttons, before handing it the nearest teenager. "Open this website," he directed, showing the kid the address on his phone.
Moments later the tv changed, to display a split screen view of multiple in progress military style missions. Anyone could have been forgiven for thinking it was a videogame playthrough as a team of masked mercenaries moved through dark, emergency lit, reinforced concrete bunkers, shooting soldiers as they went. One screen suddenly shifted, opening to be the main focus as a breakaway group of mercenaries entered a cell, where a bruised and bloody mutant girl was being brutally raped by several soldiers. The soldiers were dispatched without mercy, before the bodycammed mercenary knelt next to the girl, wrapping her gently in a discarded blanket. The poor girl, who looked no older than about fourteen, with green tinted skin and gills running down the side if her neck, sobbed violently as she clung to her rescuer before the camera view switched.
The new camera showed a medical laboratory, where a man, in his mid-twenties, was strapped to a metal table while his internal organs were being methodically removed, while he was awake. His screams could be heard through the gag he had been fitted with, blood visible where he had bitten through his own lip. They watched in horror as the doctors were ruthlessly gunned down, before a medic stepped forward and began trying to return the man's vital organs, audio capturing the medics report that it would be hours, possibly days before the man could be moved, if he survived at all, before assuring his commander he would do everything he could.
The scenes continued, a never-ending litany of violence, death, and horror, until finally purged compounds began to explode in impressive fireballs, the explosions being superimposed with names, dates, and locations of the bases, along with a url which contained a detailed information dump on each location. Some cameras didn't stop rolling, where some places couldn't be cleared and obliterated yet, continuing to show the mercenaries efforts to save the captives they could.
"That's what Xavier was hiding," Logan said, dangerously calm, "That's what Xavier was helping. Show that to Scotty-boy when he's ready to listen." He turned and walked out of the room, as the screen switched back to the medic who was still trying to return organs to the man at the second lab. A second medic had joined him and had been working at managing the pain the man was in. Logan knew that meant the mutant was a healer, they could only drug him up enough to dull the pain for so long.
Marie followed Logan out of the room, taking his hand and leading him through the mansion, she found the service panel they'd both used to get out of the mansion what seemed so long ago. Silently she led him up the stairs until they reached what had been their room, shutting the door softly she set their slumbering infant down in a makeshift crib on the couch before she turned back to Logan. He looked equally as devastated as he did relieved, sitting on the end of the bed, head hung.
She knew he was rethinking his comment to Victor about not taking part in the purge, she didn't want him to go but at the same time she would support his decision if he chose to. Right now, though, he needed something else.
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