Put It In The Past

[Maggott]

Maggott led the three of them at a near run, though Bishop told him to slow down. Maggott was pretty certain the X-Men didn't use weapons - he had never heard of them doing so anyways, and hadn't seen any in his time at the school - so he wondered what the man's affiliation with Forge was.

Forge himself was actually maneuvering very well in the grass, considering his predicament. Maggott slowed down due to fear of Bishop's weapon (and possible powers) and respect for Forge's disability.

But he could barely contain his anxiety and excitement. We're not out of the woods yet, luvs..., he thought as he once more entered the forest.

[forge]

Forge did find the trip easy enough, though dreadfully wished he'd made his leg project for this morning - not tommorow. One day seems to make a difference around these parts. In fact, this is the busiest day he'd ever had. Save Baltimore. Okay, and that oddly busy day a week ago.

He guessed that when it rained, it poured. Oh well.

Fortunately he'd brought his folding crutches - his own design. He kept them attached to the side of the chair, just in case... well, just in case a situation like this one arose. So unfolding the crutches, he hopped up on them, and bounded out into the woods with the others.

A couple minutes later, they were at the spot the body now lay... Forge had left it there, not wanting to disturb the crime scene for when he called the cops. Which would've been right after this conversation with Maggott.

He looked over at the young mutant, who was preparing to do... whatever it was he did. Then his X-Comm beeped.

"Forge, it's Logan. You need to get to the Med-Lab NOW. Rayen needs help."

Forge's heart jumped. Shit. What now? He wasn't going to sit out here waiting for Maggott to do his Voo-doo when his sister could be in trouble, though.

"Bishop. Stay with Maggott." He looked back at Maggott. "Don't dawdle out here, get what you need to know, then you two get your asses back to the mansion. Contact me when you find out ANYTHING."

And then he was gone, using the clutches to quickly eat away the distance between he and his chair.

[bishop]

Bishop had come to the Institute to visit a sick friend. That sick friend had - much to his delight - pulled through, demonstrating the strength and resilience that he was used to seeing in his men. So he had decided to stay a little longer just until Forge was - no pun intended - back on his feet.

Or possibly a pun was intended, you never could tell with Bishop.

"Bishop. Stay with Maggott."

Ah. More babysitting.

"Don't dawdle out here, get what you need to know, then you two get your asses back to the mansion. Contact me when you find out ANYTHING."

"Yes, Sarge," said Bishop, good-naturedly, making sure that the communicator Forge had provided him with was affixed firmly to the outside of his tack vest. "Now then, kid, let's do as the man says. Find what we need and head on back in."

[Maggott]

Maggott paid no mind to Forge's departing or Bishop's urging. His mind with already focused on the area around him. He stared at the body still lying in the woods and briefly wondered why the X-Men had just left her in the woods. Then he realized that they were most likely stuck between dealing with the situation themselves or calling the boere.

He closed his eyes and focused on his surroundings. His mind began to block out the sounds and thoughts of now and slowly brought in pieces of the past.

Stop! Stop!

growling...laughing...screams...her clothes are torn and blood begins to flow...

Please! Please! I'm sorry! Why are you doing this?

...tearing...blood spilled on the grass, the leaves...the screaming fades and stops...

"Oh, God..." Maggott whispered. He turned to Bishop with wide eyes. "I think we're in trouble."

[logan]

With the same speed that he'd fled with Rayen, not thirty minutes prior, Logan was barrelling out of the school, across the yard, and into the woods.

He wore his boots, jeans and a white tank-top. He looked completely focused... more anxious than anything else.

He looked like a hunter.

When he ran through the woods, he made hardly a sound, and paused every few dozen feet, sniffing.

Looks like round three asshole... no innocent civvies for you to hide behind, either.

[Sabretooth]

"I think we're in trouble."

"Boy, you ain't kiddin'".

Sabretooth dropped down from the trees, landing with a loud thud on the leafy forest floor. His fur coats and long hair billowed around him, then settled. He bared his fangs in a smile at the two dark-skinned men and spread his claws wide.

He whirled, his smile fading but not disappearing, as he heard Wolverine running through the woods. He smelled him soon after he heard him, then looked back at the two others.

"Here comes the runt to the rescue...But don't worry, boys, I like dark meat just fine."

[bishop]

"Here comes the runt to the rescue...But don't worry, boys, I like dark meat just fine."

Bishop automatically, out of pure instinct, stepped between the attacker and the kid, levelling his highly modified (and extremely dangerous) shotgun at the other man's head.

"That supposed to scare me? I've been more scared by things I get free with my breakfast cereal. Now don't you come any closer, pretty boy, 'cos I ain't got a problem blowin' your brains out through the back of your head - assumin' you got any brains to start with, of course."

He cast a sideways look at Logan, wondering just how well the two would work together.

[Sabretooth]

"...I ain't got a problem blowin' your brains out through the back of your head - assumin' you got any brains to start with, of course."

Sabretooth laughed and drew up to his full height. The two saw eye to eye, though Sabretooth outweighed the black man by fifty pounds or more.

"Go ahead, tough stuff, take your best shot." Sabretooth tilted his head back and smirked. He took one claw and pointed it under his chin.

[Maggott]

Maggott suddenly groaned and bent over. He looked up at the two men squaring off as he felt another vicious pain in his stomach and winced.

"Alright, girls, now is the time to play."

Maggott tensed his body and yanked his shirt up, exposing his stomach. Two bulges began to grow in his skin, and a low moan grew with them in his throat.

First, a small cut dribbled blood down his belly and onto his white pants, then the blood began flowing heavily. Maggott's moan grew into a strangled howl as Eany and Meany tore through his stomach, bursting out into the night air, covered in blood and slime. Maggott sobbed and dropped to his knees, holding his rended stomach in his arms.

Eany and Meany took in the two men, seeing the huge one they had bit earlier.

"Fppwt?" asked Meany.
"Krrrpt!" said Eany.

Maggott grunted and stood, his stomach almost completely healed. His gave a small laugh and snarled at Sabretooth.

"You like dark meat, doos? Well my friends here like everything. And right now? They're very, very hungry."

Maggott looked down at the two slugs.

"Sic 'em, girls."

[logan]

Logan burst through the trees, fifty feet from Bishop (who cast him a glance) and registered the fact that the young african guy was ripping those slug from his stomach. Even Logan was a little freaked out by their method of removal... maybe that's how they always came out? He seemed to not be dead afterwards, though in great pain. But still, his full attention was on the walking fur-sale.

The world slowed down for the Wolverine, which meant an adrenaline-pumped burst of speed was ripping him towards Sabertooth.

He managed to shout: "Shoot his ass!" before gargling the rest into a feral roar.

*SNIKT!*

The claws were out. The gloves were off. Sabertooth was squaring off against Bishop, Maggott (Eenie and Meenie) and Logan.

And the latter was running rull speed, claws held out to the sides, ready to rend the big man from limb to limb.

[Sabretooth]

Sabretooth watched with amusement as the younger black man fall to his knees and began to moan and grunt. His amusement turned to concern (for himself, of course) when the slug-creatures from earlier that day bloodily emerged from within the kid's stomach.

Suddenly, the area exploded into action.

"Sic 'em, girls."
"Shoot his ass!"

Sabretooth took his hand that had been pointing at his chin and grabbed the other man's gun by the barrel. He quickly clenched his hand around the tube, crushing it into uselessness before being tackled by Wolverine, Eany, and Meany.

[logan]

Logan was unsure which would disturb him more, were he not lost in a blood rage (which was about to be upgraded to a Berzerker Barrage): The idea that Sabertooth could crunch the steel so easily, or how amazingly fast he was.

In actuality, however, all he saw were little targeting reticles clicking into place on most of the big-man's major arteries.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Bishop completely unruffled by the assault on his gun. He seemed more peeved than impressed, and he actually dropped and rolled backwards out of the melee range of the big man.

He also saw the slugs preparing to jump, but by then Logan was too far devoted. He flew with both sets of claws out, one hand aimed at Sabertooth's neck, the other at his face. He was over-extended, and Sabertooth's experience (or perhaps pure natural instinct) outmatched his maneuver. He half ducked Logan, sweeping a massive arm and catching the smaller man in the stomach with a wide arc. The powerful (and devastatingly simple) move pushed Logan with his momentum, and threw him completely over Creed – and careening violently into a massive oak - back first!

Logan hit with a meaty thud, bouncing from his shoulder blades into a sort of sloppy diagonal spin, landing awkwardly on the ground. He was dazed.

[bishop]

Bishop was not at all impressed when the particularly large and hairy man destroyed his gun. In fact, to say he was not at all impressed was very likely to go down in the Book of Serious Understatements Of All Time Volume 59.

He was fuming. The amount of work that had gone into working on that weapon - disintegrated without so much as a by-your-leave!

However.

This was Lucas Bishop.

And Lucas Bishop did not carry one weapon.

As he barrel-rolled his way out of melee range, he pulled the paired pistols out of the thigh holsters and levelled them at the intruder. He had a sneaking suspicion that firing them at him would likely do little more than irritate His Holy Hirsuitness, but by Bishop's reckoning, it'd also give him time to access the throwing knifes strapped to his ankles, possible let rip with a grenade or two and then ultimately face the big guy down with the fairly hefty hunting knife he wore in a back-holder.

Game on.

He fired.

[Sabretooth]

Sabretooth laughed at Wolverine's sloppy attack. His laugh turned into a howl as Eany bit clean through his bicep and then jumped to the ground.

"You little pieces of shit!" he yelled.

In response, Meany took a bite out of the small of his back. "Rrraaagh!" Sabretooth reached around his side and grasped the creature firmly, then tore it from his body, taking a good portion of his lower back with it. He grabbed the slug in both hands and attempted to crush it, but the damned thing barely moved a centimeter.

Just then, Bishop pulled two more guns from his holsters and began to fire at Sabretooth. Palming the slug in one massive hand, he hurled it into the forest, hoping to never see it again. In between gunshots, he heard it smashing though the branches on its trip.

Bishop's bullets began to collide with Sabretooth, but they made little difference to him. The shotgun would've hurt like a bitch, but these pea shooters were nothing compared to most of the things that had hurt him over the years. Into his left shoulder, his chest, his stomach, his right arm, the bullets hit him and still he charged at the man.

"Some role model for the kids you are, Mr. T," he said as he attacked the man. Coming within striking range, Sabretooth swatted both pistols out of his hands with one hit, then snarled down at him.

He drew back an arm to slice the man's throat when an intense pain ran through his hand. Growling, he turned and brought his hand forward, and found he had gone from five fingers to three. Growling in anger and horror, he looked back at Wolverine, who was just getting up from where he had been thrown.

"Who?" Then he looked down and saw his index finger slipping into the maw of Eany.

Sabretooth howled so loud, Alani Ryan sat upright in bed, and looked out her window in terror.

[logan]

Logan gained his measure back relatively quickly, charging at Sabertooth as soon as he let out the roar of pain from the slug’s attack.

The Wolverine let out his own roar, claws glistening in the low light of the late afternoon. The big man was stomping at the slug, and snapped his head in time to see Logan charging directly at him again, likely for another sloppy attack.

It was good enough for Bishop, who was ever the opportunist, to bury a 10 inch hunting knife between Sabertooth's ribs. Grinding with both hands, the massive black man had both his feet planted to twist the blade in a circle, sending shocks of pain up into Creed’s torso…

But it was obviously not enough to put the man down. With a swatting backhand, he knocked Bishop into the air, sending him nine feet back until he slid through the leaves.

Now Eany was burning through his foot, sending more pain into his already blitzed cortex. A flick of his foot sent the slug into a tree, and Sabertooth even managed to turn in time to swipe at the runt.

This time Logan was ready. He rolled under the slashing of the bigger man’s claws, and took a swipe with one of his own, opening Creed’s thigh with a splash of hot blood. As Sabertooth staggered, Logan was spinning in place, planting himself as he drove the three claws from the other hand into his enemy’s leg. The blow swept Sabertooth onto his back, and Logan followed him down, shoving more claws into his belly.

His final strike was aimed for the throat, but Somehow Creed caught Logan’s wrist. The power struggle for control was brief, the bigger man possessing a supernatural level of strength. Planting a foot into Logan’s stomach, he monkey-tossed him over his head, and launched the Canadian several paces away into another tree.

[Sabretooth]

Sabretooth sprang around onto all fours, glaring at Wolverine.

"Don't you ever learn, runt? I'm just better than you!" He charged on all fours, then built up speed and ran on his legs. Bushes and saplings were shattered and trampled until Sabretooth reached Wolverine. He picked him up by his throat with one hand and swiftly slashed Logan across the face. Four deep gashes exposed Wolverine's adamantium skull beneath, and his eyes rolled up and sideways. Wolverine groaned then screamed as Sabretooth threw his claws beneath Logan's ribs, slicing into his stomach like a fiery machete through butter.

Wolverine coughed blood onto Sabretooth's forearm and Sabretooth laughed. "That fancy metal doesn't help much when I can work around it, does it?" He twisted his hand in Logan's gut, eliciting another low scream.

"Does it, runt?" Sabretooth laughed in his face. "No..." Logan grunted, "but it helps me do this!" With a roar, Logan brought both his fists together on Sabretooth's wrist, piercing it in six places. Sabretooth howled and dropped Wolverine, and as he fell, Logan drew his hands upwards, severing Sabretooth's hand from his arm. Sabretooth tried to scream, but a fleshy phlegmy hiss came out instead.

"Hey, asshole," came a voice from behind him. Sabretooth whipped around, and blue fist collided with his jaw, sending him into the air. He collided with the base of a tree, his weight cracking the wood beneath him. He stared up at the blue man who had just punched him - it was the black boy from before...but his skin had turned blue and he was much bigger than he had been, so much so that his shirt sleeves had torn at the shoulders and biceps.

"Looks like you're good for the palate, Scruff McGruff. Never got this buff before, eh, girls?" Maggott patted his stomach affectionately.

Maggott started walking toward where Sabretooth had landed. Creed lay on the ground, bleeding and panting, his face a mask of pain and fear. Maggott stopped in front of him and smirked. Wolverine came towards them from the side, one hand out towards Maggott.

"Kid, you better get away from him," he said.

Maggott turned and looked at Wolverine. "Come on, boykie, this-"

The rest of Maggott's words caught in his throat as Sabretooth sprang forward and plunged his claws into Maggott's gut, just below the right side of his ribcage. He curled his fingers up within Maggott's stomach and drew him forward by his own skin. "Shoulda listened, Sambo. Haven't ya ever heard of playin' 'possum?"

With a roar Sabretooth slashed his hand in and through Maggott's stomach, tearing out his insides and gutting him. Maggott puked blood and bile out onto the forest floor and fell to his side, coughing and gasping.

Sabretooth smiled at Wolverine.

"Just you and me again, sweetheart."

[logan]

Logan didn't have time to be sorrowful at the fatally wounded Maggott, a kid he'd immediately grown to like within the last few moments... he also didn't have time to double over from his rapidly healing internal damage, or the skin that was just now regenerating on his ripped up head and face.

Instead he had only time to worry about the gigantic beast before him, who'd proven himself time and time again every inch Logan's better. That was fine, of course, because the thought wouldn't stop Logan from trying to rip his head off.

Sabertooth had one arm left... he was tore up from one side to another, and he'd lost more blood than a human body had.

Yet still...

“Just you and me again, Sweetheart.”

Logan grinned, a lopsided expression due to the serious trauma his face had been put through.

“Not quite, bub.” He said, just as a .50 caliber pistol round ripped into Sabertooth's jaw, splattering blood and teeth.

Bishop was half-raised off of the ground, and had retrieved one of his gigantic pistols. It was smoking, and the chamber was empty... the last shot.

Sabertooth was knocked to a knee, and as he raised, an angry look on his now mutilated face, Logan dove into him.

Creed managed to raise his good hand to catch one of Logan's own, even though two of the adamantium blades burst through his hand. Still, it stopped the attack well enough to prevent any torso damage. Unfortunately, however, he had no other arm to block the second hand.

Logan had been aiming right for his face... and to his credit, Sabertooth moved his head quickly enough to avoid three claws from driving through his skull. He didn't quite avoid the third, however, and in a grotesque display of brutality, Logan's inside blade pierced the big man's eyeball, and drove through his head and out the back.

Logan was drenched in black blood, and he let out a feral scream as Sabertooth howled what had to be his own final roar.

The Wolverine watched as the life drained from Creed's good eye... though for good measure, he buried his claws deep into Creed's chest, right into his heart.

Sweaty, drenched in blood, and feeling more hurt than... well, he'd ever been. Logan rushed to the downed Maggott.

“Ah shit... shit shit shit...” He murmured. “Bishop, you okay?”

The big man nodded wearily, and Logan continued.

“We got get him to the med-lab. Call Forge and that new kid Josh. He needs attention now!” He scooped the young African into his arms, and looked over to the little Slugs, who were waiting faithfully by the body of their master. Unsure if they could even understand english, he said “Get on my shoulders.”

Amazingly, they complied. And the lot of them rushed out of the woods and into the school.