Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters - Six Months Later...

Laura landed on the leaves, running through the field at her highest speed. She leaped and flipped over a log in her path, launching herself off the bottom of a tree and swinging on a branch across the small river.

Rogue ran behind her, shouting "just a couple more turns!" as she tried to catch up. Laura said back "going high!" as she ran up one of the trees, Rogue sighing as she said "stay low!"

Laura leaped through the trees, her yellow and black costume blending in with the leaves and branches. She eyed the figures running beneath her, swinging from one branch to another, eventually dropping down from the leaves to the students in her path.

"Gotcha!" she said, prompting the students to skid to a halt. "Aw, come on!" one of the younger mutants said, as Rogue finally caught up to the group.

"Alright everybody. Good hustle y'got there. Good hustle!" Rogue said, panting slightly. Laura took off her pointy-eared mask, dusting it a bit before saying "you guys need to use your powers to your advantage. That oughta get you ahead in the future."

Suddenly, they all turned to see Wade collapse in exhaustion as he crawled over to them. "Hey, what the hell, you guys? Whatever happened to jogging exercises?" Wade asked as he struggled to get up, while everyone laughed merrily. "Alright, come on kids. I'll race y'back to the school!" Laura said as she ran ahead, the young students following her as Rogue sat back a bit with Wade.

"They all love her, don't they?" Rogue said proudly, as Wade added "sure they do. She's a chip off the old-block. She did better with 10 lines of dialogue than Wolvie did in 17 years, y'know."

"Yeah, thanks Wade. Fucking moron." Rogue scoffed as she flew past the trees to hover over Laura and the other students. Laura led them to the front of the institute, where she could see Betty reading through an old X-Men comic to some of the first-year students.

"And then Logan woke up, but all the Sentinels and all of the problems they'd caused had disappeared." she read out loudly, smiling a bit as Laura waved to her, as she continued "the School was back to normal. Charles was there, and Jean and Scott. Logan felt so good to see everyone."

As the students went to combat training with Cable and Gambit, Laura separated from the group, throwing her helmet into her bedroom as she passed the classroom where Kitty and Raven were teaching other students. She walked casually outside into the large garden of the mansion. She saw Rictor and Bobby leading the next generation of the X-Men in suiting up as they prepared to train in the danger room, watching from afar as she climbed an old oak tree and sat on the first branch.

She sighed a bit, breathing in the crisp, clear air as she heard the birds tweeting in the sky. "How's it goin', lil' sister?" Rogue said, levitating herself up onto the branch with her. Laura shrugged, saying "not bad. Not bad at all."

"By the way, Betty wanted you to see this." Rogue said as she passed Laura a small pamphlet of paper. "The first issue."

"Is this me?" Laura said excitedly, seeing a drawing of her in her costume, with the title THE ALL-NEW WOLVERINE! emblazoned over it in blue and gold letters. She almost felt a tear in her eye, as Rogue said "whaddayathink, sugar?"

Laura suddenly hugged her tightly, saying "I love it. I really do."

Rogue returned the embrace, saying "yeah, Laura. We all love you too."

This is it, Laura thought to herself as she and Rogue looked at the school from the tree-branch. Everything Gabriela, Charles, Caliban and Logan had done for her had led her to this. Freedom. Family. Home. And she couldn't possibly ask for anything better.

THE END