A/N: Hiya, fanfiction...uhh...fans(?) anyways, I've been in the HUGEST writing slump for a while now, so no updates on my other stories are forthcoming yet, but this one's been absolutely FORCING its way out of my brain little by little so hopefully I can get this out and then an update to The Ties that Bind and S:S (which i'm considering renaming, btw Suggestions are welcome :).

This story is inspired by a song (don't worry, not a songfic) that I'm sure some of you have heard, and that is Savior (Duh) by Rise Against. Enough prattle. Enjoy.

Savior:

First Entry

Porcelain skin cracked and split as a tanned fist connected with its outermost layer. Liquid life flowed through the crevice, staining crimson all it touched in its rush to find tranquility. Droplets hung in the air before her emerald eyes as time slowed. A girl with no name, X-23 saw her handler's arm as the woman stepped through the punch, she saw her jailer's smug smile behind, twisted as his blackened heart. The wound on her temple closed just before her body slammed into the cold metal floor, stemming the flow as her eyes found the room's third occupant.

Bright blue eyes stared back at her wide, frightened – terrified – eyes. They bored into her soul, baring emotion she'd never experienced and something old and rusted and forgotten deep within her stirred. It reared its head, weak and beaten, broken but alive. His chin was set hard, defiant, he wouldn't lose, his posture seemed to say, no matter how scared or sad or lonely, he'd always come out on top.

X-23's eye fluttered open in a desperate bid for consciousness, raking across him from top to bottom and something in his mop of dark hair caught her eye; A tinge of green in the sea of black. The boy blushed profusely, despite his obvious fright, embarrassedly reaching up to his hair and trying in vain to extricate the blow pop that had gotten tangled in his mane during the short helicopter ride from his California home. No one in the room but him noticed the slight curve of her lips.

Julian was his name. Though she hadn't seen him in nearly a week, the boy hadn't left her mind for a moment. Julian, she learned, was being held in a separate cell on the other side of the facility. She kept all six of her indestructible claws in the corner of the titanium walls in the ready room. Zander Rice and Martin Sutter stood in the door beneath her, oblivious to her presence as she listened to their hushed German.

"Wie ist der Junge?" How is the boy?

"Immer noch Angst. Wir halten ihn auf diese Weise." Still afraid. We will keep him this way.

"Gute. Er ist alt, und wir zahlten einen hohen Preis für ihn. Pause ihn schnell." Good. We paid a high price for him. Break him quickly.

Fear twisted X-23's gut like a knife. The sickening sensation passed over her like a thundercloud, dampening the brief excitement she'd felt at the boy's presence. Rice and Sutter would do horrible things to this boy. Horrible things she'd experienced firsthand.

Sutter lowered his voice another few decibels but Laura, with her enhanced hearing, had no trouble discerning his words.

"Erwarten kinney Verrat bald." Expect Kinney's betrayal soon.

Ice flooded X-23's veins at this. Sarah Kinney was her creator, her mother. She wouldn't betray her. She couldn't. Sutter smiled slowly, sitting stock-still as he weighed his subordinate's words.

"Es spielt keine Rolle. Wir sind bereit für Phase zwei." No matter. We are ready to proceed with phase two.

"I don't need to remind you of the importance of this, Logan. They've used this weapon to kill over fifty people so far. One of them the presidential candidate."

James 'Logan' Howlett pulled down the black and grey, Kevlar facemask he wore on Scott Summers' special missions.

"Yeah, I get it Scott. Kill these fuckers, kill their weapon. Me an' Warpath'll handle it. Right James?"

He turned to the copilots seat of the X-wing where his partner-in-crime sat quietly. The native American mutant smiled softly, reminding Logan of the innumerable hardships he'd endured. Logan growled softly. He'd probably be killing the weapon himself.

"Don't go soft on me, Jimmy. We still don't even know who this weapon is."

As of yet there wasn't even video, from a cell phone, camcorder or anything. The only thing that had been left behind were shredded bodies, claw marks cut precisely through vital points as if he'd done it.

But anyone who knew Logan knew he wasn't picky when it came to killing. When Logan raged, everything around him died, and died ugly. These incisions were precise, targeted and deliberate; an assassin's hallmark.

"Good," Cyclop's voice wafted from the control panel. "Remember the intelligence is suspect. This Kinney person may have defected, and Emma can't find anything in her head to say she's lying, but that doesn't mean she hasn't been memory wiped."

"Understood," Logan replied. "Don't worry, we've got luck on our side today." He glanced back at the vehicle's third occupant, a mutant markswoman known as 'Domino' who manipulated probability in her favor. His gaze lingered on her open shirt and the pale valley visible within; he craned his neck just a little…

"Hey, keep your eyes on the road you overgrown hamster," Domino snapped, looking up from loading her twin pistols.

"We're in a jet," Logan shot back gruffly. "And it's on autopilot." Letting the statement hang in the air, as if that concluded the argument, he turned around slowly, looking back down at the communication console. "Alright Cyke. We're pretty much there so its huntin' time."

The mutant commander nodded. "Good luck X-force. Cyclops out."

Domino sneered. "'Good luck,' he says. I am good lu-"

!

Everyone froze as warning lights began to flash all over the jet. Logan gulped as he realized that the sound of the engine no longer reached their ears.

"Shit," Domino finished.

"You were saying?" Logan asked irritably, desperately trying to correct a mistake he had no control over.

"…" Warpath fixed Logan with a glare.

"Shutup Jimmy. Alright, abandon ship," Logan muttered bitterly.

Three seconds later, he was the only one on the jet.

"Y'know," he muttered, "I always somehow thought that I'd be begged not to go down with the ship. Computer, what the hell happened, anyway?" He popped his claws with a loud SNIKT!

"Birdstrike detected in main intake nacelle."

"Birdstrike?" Logan raged. "Fucking birdstike at ten thousand feet?" `

"Yes," continued the computer, oblivious to his ire. "The main intake passed too close to a peregrine falcon in full stoop. The probability of this occurrence is one hundred and fourteen quadrillion, seventy nine trillion-"

"SHUTUP!" Logan replied, jamming his claws into the main console. He grabbed a chute as the autopilot disengaged and they began an uncontrolled freefall, leaping out of the wildly spinning plane before even strapping the parachute to his waist.

He watched the plane spiral away- a regrettably large inferno trailing from its million dollar engine- and slamming into the desert still near mach speed.

"I can't believe this shit."

"I can't believe this shit!" a dark-skinned woman hollered from beneath the wreckage of a conspicuous black jet. Only her head was visible as Facility operatives worked to extricate her.

Logan peered through the hole made in the roof of the underground compound by the falling X-wing and the wreckage of one of its wings laying atop a miraculously still-breathing woman.

"You're telling me, lady," he growled, leaping down to impale her through the throat.

To his immense surprise, his claws scraped right off the side of her neck and he stared at them stupidly for precisely one second.

"GET HIM!" she roared, and pandemonium ensued. OF course, they didn't get him. They never got him.

Dust billowed around a barren field in the lonely Mojave Desert as a black helicopter lifted quickly into the first rays of dawn. Its running lights were dark and its expensive, noise dampening turbine kept it quiet, occupants hoping to keep out of sight as it sped away from the morning. Within seconds it had cleared the tall metal fence and Zander Rice peered through his brown bangs at the tiny entrance, illuminated by the few spotlights left down there.

A titanium blast door splintered apart as impossibly sharp, indestructible metal claws sliced through it. A bloodcurdling howl barely preceded the burly wolf of a man with a billion dollar clone of himself trailing at his heels: A twelve year old girl, bloodied feet slapping against the pavement with a six inch long claw extending from between her toes on each foot.

Rice felt a chill run down his spine at the sight of the pair, the former howling in feral rage with the blood of countless men and women staining his black and grey outfit. He couldn't imagine being on the ground with them.

"We will need a new subject," Rice said to his partner, Martin Sutter. The older man nodded. "But Kinney's betrayal has hurt us. Even our best sniffers couldn't detect the EMP charge in the mainframe. We no longer have X-23's data."

"No matter," Rice replied almost hurriedly. Sutter knew he was all too eager to move from the woman's shadow. "She is a lost cause anyway. It was Kinney's pet project. We still have Weapon X's data and that's all we need."

Rice smirked, happy to be in an advantageous position over his superior. "He possesses an X-gene consistent with Alpha-level psionics or higher. Kinney confirmed it before her…departure."

The other scientist licked his lips in anticipation. Alpha level telekinesis was rare even among the most powerful mutants. Strong manipulation of all matter, devoid of flaws like unintentional manipulation or telltale signs. The potential was limitless. "The boy."

"Twelve, just like the girl. We would have to begin conditioning immediately and we've proven success in Wade Wilson among others that healing factors can be artificially endowed. Mental acuity is average but training can put him where we need."

Sutter smiled, straightening his white lab coat. "Do it."

In the seat beside him, Julian Keller stared, bleary-eyed and defiant, at the men talking about him as if he were cattle.

"Ahh, he's awake," Rice murmured. "So insolent. We'll have to stamp that out of you, too."

R&R!

Paperazzi 0uT!

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