" AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"
A violent, freezing hot expulsion rushed over Logans body who felt like the gravitational pull was chewing him up and then it spat him out across the dimensions. He felt the sweltering heat of Helheim instantly clash with the friction of Earth's atmosphere, turning the moisture on his skin into a scalding cloud of steam. He was a human meteor, completely naked, plummeting through the star lit sky like a falling star.
KRA-THOOOOOM!!!!!!!1
Logan impacted the dirt covered ground with a force eqaul to that of a bunker-buster missile.
He struck the side of a snow-covered mountain, his adamantium skeleton taking the brunt of a collision that would have liquefied a normal man into red paste. He was burried into the ground, a hole literally the shape of his body standing out on the floor
Silence descended, broken only by the sound of falling rocks and the hiss of melting snow.
" oooooooooooh"
At the bottom of the smoking crater, Logan lay completely still and groaning in agony. His body was a wreck. His left arm was bent at a sickening angle, his ribs felt like they were powder, and his jaw was dislocated.
Fortunately his regeneration took effect, slowly healing his limbs and organs.
It wasn't a gentle healing. It was a violent, agonizing kind of healing. Steam poured off his skin as his core temperature spiked. Tendons snapped back like thick rubber bands. Bones ground against each other with a horrific, wet crunching sound as they forcefully realigned. The adamantium lacing his skeleton hummed with a low, vibrating frequency, rejecting the damage. Logan let out a choked, bloody gasp as his jaw snapped back into its socket.
He slowly pulled himself out of the ground and lied flat on the floor before rolling onto his stomach, coughing up a mouthful of dirt and blood with bits of his organs. He dug his fingers into the frozen earth, feeling the familiar, grounding sting of the cold snow. Finally, he was back home.
"Dammit..." Logan rasped, his voice sounding like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together. He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, shaking his head like a wet dog. His senses immediately expanded, mapping the environment.
Pine needles. Frozen sap. The metallic tang of his own blood.
And something else.
Gamma radiation. Sharp, acrid, and smelling faintly of ozone and burning copper.
Logan snapped his head up, his eyes piercing the darkness of the Canadian wilderness. About fifty yards away, sitting in the center of a perfectly circular, glassed-over crater of melted snow and slag, was Bruce Banner.
Bruce was curled into a fetal position, shivering violently in the freezing night air. He was completely naked, his frail human body a stark contrast to the apocalyptic destruction surrounding him. But there was something different about him. He didn't look as feareful of himself anymore. The fusion of his soul in Helheim must have left a mark.
Logan grunted, his bones popping as he stood up to his full height. The freezing wind whipped against his bare skin, but the heat of his healing factor kept the chill at bay. He started trudging through the snow toward the physicist. While his adaptive regeneration slowly got him used to the temperature around him.
"Hey," Logan called out, his voice a low, rough rumble. "You still in one piece, doc?"
Bruce flinched, pulling his knees tighter to his chest. He looked up, his teeth chattering uncontrollably. When he saw Logan walking toward him—a scarred, naked man who had literally dragged him out of hell—a weak, trembling smile touched his lips.
"L-Logan," Bruce stammered, wrapping his arms around himself. "I... I think so. It's cold. It's really, really cold."
"Yeah, well, I don't think Hela is exactly known for her hospitality or her travel accommodations," Logan muttered. He reached the edge of Bruce's crater and looked around. The Canadian wilderness stretched out in every direction, a vast ocean of black trees and silver moonlight. "Looks like she dumped us not too far from where Loki nabbed us. Could be worse. Could've dropped us in Times Square without our pants."
Bruce let out a short, hysterical laugh that quickly turned into a violent shiver. "Are... are they gone? The ghosts? The Gods?"
"We're back on Earth, Bruce," Logan said softly, kneeling down beside him. He placed a heavy, reassuring hand on Banner's freezing shoulder. "You're safe. The big guy did good. You did good."
Bruce closed his eyes, leaning into the touch. For the first time in a decade, he reached inward, searching his own mind. He expected to find the roaring, raging beast locked behind a mental cage, clawing to get out. Instead, he found a massive, quiet presence. It was sleeping. It was peaceful.
Hulk... tired, a deep, rumbling thought echoed in the back of Bruce's mind.
Bruce opened his eyes, a tear escaping and freezing on his cheek. "He's quiet. Logan... he's actually quiet."
"Told ya," Logan smirked, standing back up. "Just needed to get his heart rate down. Come on, we gotta get moving before frostbit—"
Logan's super-hearing twitched.
The feral animal inside him slammed against the front of his skull. His pupils dilated, as he snapped his head toward the southern horizon.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It was rhythmic. Mechanical. Heavy. It sounded like giant pieces of metal moving, echoing miles above the cloud cover.
Bruce looked up, seeing the sudden, violent shift in Logan's posture. The relaxed, supportive friend vanished in a microsecond, replaced by an apex predator tracking a threat. "Logan? What is it?"
"Company," Logan growled, his upper lip pulling back to reveal his canines.
Before Bruce could ask who, the clouds above them tore open.
Four missiles pushed by blue fire descended from the sky, cutting through the darkness loudly. The roar of military-grade thrusters deafened the silent forest. The trees around them bent and snapped under the sheer rush of force from the downdraft.
KRA-KOOM. KRA-KOOM. KRA-KOOM. KRA-KOOM.
Four colossal, bipedal tank style mechs slammed into the earth, forming a perfect square around the two naked men.
They were Hulkbusters. But unlike Tony Starks future Hulkbuster armor, these were shapped like tanks with legs and machine gets attatched to the powerful cannons. They stood twenty feet tall, their body heavily armored with titanium plating. Massive hydraulic pistons hissed as they locked into combat stances. Shoulder-mounted Gatling guns spun up with a terrifying, high-pitched whine.
Spotlights, blindingly bright, snapped on, bathing Logan and Bruce in a harsh, sterile white glare.
A loud, electronically amplified voice boomed from the lead mech.
"BRUCE BANNER. DO NOT MOVE. YOU ARE IN DIRECT VIOLATION OF THE US GOVERNMENT AND HAVE BEEN CHARGED WITH HIGH TREASON BY GENERAL THADEUS ROSS. SURRENDER IMMEDIATELY OR LETHAL FORCE WILL BE AUTHORIZED."
Bruce scrambled backward, his bare back hitting the cold stone of the crater. The panic, the old, familiar terror, began to rise in his chest. "No... no, not General Ross. Not now. I just got back..."
Logan didn't step back. He stepped forward.
He put his body directly between the towering wall of military-grade steel and the shivering physicist. The spotlights illuminated every jagged scar on his body, casting long, monstrous shadows behind him.
"Ross," Logan spat, the name tasting like venom in his mouth. "Always sending tin cans to do a man's job. Even in this world that never changes."
"UNIDENTIFIED MALE," the mech blared. "STEP AWAY FROM THE TARGET. LIE FACE DOWN IN THE SNOW WITH YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD. THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING. AIDING AND ABEDDING A FEDERAL CRIMINAL IS A CAPITAL OFFENCE"
Logan lowered his head, his shoulders hunching forward. The muscles in his back coiled like thick steel cables. He felt the familiar, violent itch deep in his marrow.
"I got a counter-offer, for ya" Logan whispered, his voice vibrating with a lethal, terrifying promise.
He curled his fists.
SNIKT!!
Six adamantium blades erupted from his knuckles, gleaming silver in the harsh spotlights. But they didn't stay silver for long.
Logan tapped into the Hot Claws skill. A deep, fiery orange light ignited at the base of the metal, racing up the length of the blades until they were glowing with a white-hot, thermal intensity. The heat was so great that the falling snow hissed and vaporized a full foot before it even touched the metal.
"WARNING. MUTANT THREAT DETECTED. WEAPONS FREE. ENGAGE."
BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG!!!!!!
The twin Gatling guns on the lead mech opened fire, unleashing a storm of depleted uranium rounds that tore through the air at three thousand feet per second.
Logan ran straight at them
His reflexes kicked in, turning the world into a sluggish, slow-motion crawl. He saw the muzzle flashes. He saw the trajectory of the bullets. He dropped to all fours, his muscles exploding with muscular power as he launched himself straight at the lead mech.
The bullets pierced and blew up the ground where he had been standing a second after he had moved, ripping the earth to shreds. Logan was a blur of naked flesh and searing orange light. He sliced the massive right leg of the Hulkbuster, his hot claws sinking effortlessly into the thick plating.
The metal melting within seconds of being carved through.
SHLKT-HISSSSS.
Logan carved a massive, smoking crescent shape cut through the mech's knee joint, severing the primary hydraulic lines. Thick, black synthetic fluid sprayed into the snow. The twenty-foot titan let out a mechanical groan as its right leg completely buckled under its own weight.
"CRITICAL DAMAGE! I'M COMPROMISED!" the pilot inside screamed over the comms.
As the mech fell to one knee, Logan used the falling momentum to launch himself upward. He scrambled up the chest plate of the Hulkbuster like a spider, his claws leaving deep, molten gashes in the armor.
The second mech pivoted, raising a massive repulsor cannon aimed directly at Logan's back.
VROOOOOM.
A beam of concussive red energy fired. Logan feeling the wind shift behind him kicked off the lead mech's chest, backflipping through the air. The energy blast completely missed him and hit the lead mech squarely in the helmet, blowing the camera sensors on the mech he had been on to a shower of sparks and rendering the pilot inside completely blind.
Logan landed softly in the snow, ten feet away from the third mech.
"My turn," Logan growled.
The transformation happened in an instant and brutally. Black, bristling fur erupted from his pores, thick and completely impervious to the cold. His bones cracked and shifted, expanding his frame, the adamantium heating up enough to change shape along with the bones. His jaw elongated into a terrifying, lupine snout filled with jagged fangs. His muscles doubled in mass, bulging with supernatural strength. In the blink of an eye, the naked man vanished, replaced by a seven-foot-tall, dark-furred nightmare of muscle, adamantium, and glowing heated blades.
The pilots in the mechs froze. The tactical displays in their visors couldn't even process the impossibility of what they were seeing. But then again, their mission was to hunt a giant green monster.
The Werewolf let out a roar that didn't sound like a man or an animal. But it was enough to trigger the human bodies response to a predator at the top of the food chain.
Inside his mind, Bruce Banner watched the monster roar. He felt the Hulk stir lazily in his subconscious.
'Wolf strong,' Hulk murmured approvingly. 'Wolf smash cans.'
"Yeah," Bruce whispered, awe washing over his fear. "He really does."
The Werewolf charged, clearing forty feet in a single leap. The third mech swung the massive, cannon to swat him out of the air. Logan caught the barrel with his own hands. his feet digging into the ground and leaving two deep lines in the snow.
Then, he raised his fist and sliced through it.
His hot claws punched straight through the armored cannon of the mech. He twisted his wrists with supernatural torque.
SWISH!!!
The massive metal cannon was violently cut into several bits, sparking wires and smoking parts erupting into the snow. The Werewolf didn't stop. He used the severed stump as a stepping stone, vaulting himself directly onto the cockpit glass of the mech.
The pilot inside, a hardened soldier who had fought in a dozen warzones, screamed in absolute terror as a massive, black-furred werewolf slammed into his reinforced bulletproof windshield.
Logan stared down at the man, his yellow eyes glowing with pure, predatory malice. He raised his right fist, the three hot claws burning a brilliant, blinding orange.
SHRAK.
He drove the claws straight through the six-inch-thick ballistic glass. The heat instantly spider-webbed the entire canopy. He pulled his fist back and drove it in again. And again. On the third strike, the glass shattered completely.
Logan reached in, grabbed the terrified pilot by the tactical vest, and effortlessly ripped him out of the cockpit. He held the screaming man dangling over the snow.
The pilot squeezed his eyes shut, waiting to be bitten in half.
Instead, Logan simply tossed him casually into a soft snowbank twenty feet away. "Stay down, bub," the Werewolf rumbled, his voice a vibrating bass that shook the trees.
The remaining two functional mechs opened up with everything they had. Missiles, repulsors, and heavy ballistics painted the forest in fire. The trees around them were vaporized. The snow turned to steam.
Logan dropped into the crater, landing heavily in front of Bruce. He crossed his arms in an X over his face, acting as an unbreakable meat shield for the physicist. The bullets tore through his fur, ripping chunks of flesh from his arms and chest. The missiles exploded against his back, bathing him in hellfire.
Through the smoke and the fire, Bruce watched the Werewolf take a bombardment that would level a city block. Logan's flesh was being burned away to the metal, only to regenerate, the Level 3 Mutant Physique working in overdrive.
The barrage lasted for a full thirty seconds. When the smoke finally cleared, the pilots expected to see a crater filled with blood and ash.
But all they would find was a nightmare.The Werewolf stood tall, his fur smoking, his flesh knitting together over shining adamantium bone. He uncrossed his arms. His hot claws were no longer orange; they were glowing a furious, blinding white.
"You done?" Logan growled.
He dropped to all fours and sprinted. He was faster than their targeting computers. He moved like a shadow. He slid under the legs of the fourth mech, slicing upward with a precision strike that completely severed the main power conduits running through the groin chassis. The massive machine powered down instantly, freezing in place like a giant steel statue.
Only one functional mech remained. The pilot, realizing he was fighting an unwinable fight panicked. He slammed the thrusters to maximum, trying to gain altitude and retreat.
"Oh no you don't," Logan snarled.
He leaped off a shattered tree stump, launching himself sixty feet into the air. He caught the ascending mech by the ankle. The sheer weight of his adamantium skeleton, combined with his supernatural density, acted as a massive anchor.
The mech's thrusters whined, straining to lift the additional tonnage.
Logan swung his body upward, climbing the leg of the flying mech. He reached the main thruster port on the back. He plunged both fists, fully extended, straight into the exhaust vents.
KRA-BOOM!
The white-hot adamantium claws ignited the volatile jet fuel instantly. A massive explosion blew the back off the Hulkbuster in mid-air.
The mech plummeted, crashing into the forest edge with a deafening screech of twisting metal. The emergency escape pod ejected just in time, shooting the pilot into the tree branches, tangled safely in a parachute.
Silence fell over the Canadian wilderness once more, broken only by the crackle of burning pine and the hiss of cooling metal.
Logan stood in the center of the devastation. Four state-of-the-art, billion-dollar warmachines lay in smoking ruins around him. None of the pilots were dead—he had made sure of that—but their tech was permanently retired.
He took a deep breath, letting the freezing air fill his lungs. The Berserk Rage slowly began to recede. The black fur melted back into his skin. His bones shifted, shrinking back down until he was just a naked man standing in the snow. His claws retracted with a soft snikt, the glowing heat fading back into the cold metal.
He walked over to the nearest crashed mech. The cockpit was blown open, and a survival kit had spilled onto the snow. Logan rummaged through it, ignoring the first aid supplies and emergency rations.
He pulled out a thick, wool military blanket and a miraculously intact cigar.In his past life he never smoked, fearing he'd develop lung cancer. But in this life he had regeneration, and something about smoking a cigar at the moment felt incredible appealing.
He popped one claw, just enough to generate a tiny spark of heat, and lit the cigar. He took a long, slow drag, the tip glowing red in the dark. He let out a thick plume of smoke absolutely satisfied.
He walked back to the glassed-over crater where Bruce Banner was still sitting, staring at the destruction in absolute, stunned silence.
Logan tossed the heavy wool blanket over Bruce's shivering shoulders.
"Thanks," Bruce whispered, pulling the blanket tight around himself. He looked at the smoking wreckage, then up at Logan. "You... you took down a Hulkbuster squad in under three minutes. Without breaking a sweat."
Logan took another drag of his cigar, shrugging his massive shoulders. "They rely too much on their tech.. And out here? In these woods?" Logan smirked around the cigar. "I'm the top dog."
Bruce managed a small, genuine smile. He pulled himself up, his bare feet sinking into the snow. The fear of Ross, the fear of the Hulk—it felt distant. For the first time in his life, Bruce Banner felt like he had a bodyguard. Someone who wasn't afraid of the monster, because he was one himself.
"So," Bruce said, his breath pluming in the cold air. "Where to now, James?"
Logan looked at him. It felt strange to be called James, though it was Logans real name, he never used it. But it felt right hearing it now.
"Well, Bruce," Logan said, turning to look at the vast expanse of the frozen wilderness. "We're in Canada. The military is gonna be crawling all over this place in about ten minutes. We need clothes, we need a hot meal, and we need a ride."
He started walking toward the tree line, the red ember of his cigar cutting a path through the dark.
"I know a dive bar about twenty miles from here," Logan called back over his shoulder. "They serve the worst whiskey in the hemisphere, but the owner owes me a favor. You up for a hike?"
' I recall watching in Logans memories, him saving that bar owner from a couple of thugs holding him at gun point. He said he'd repay him so hopefully the guy hasn't forgotten.'
Bruce Banner looked down at his frail, human hands. He closed his eyes and felt the quiet, steady rhythm of the Hulk sleeping inside his mind. He wasn't afraid anymore.
"Yeah," Bruce said, stepping out of the crater and following the trail of smoke. "A hike sounds perfect."