The siren howled only three minutes later as we stood by the elevator door leading to the lower floors. To call it, you had to know the password and have a special pass. Mystic had already retrieved the latter in advance, but the first was trickier. It changed periodically, but the catch was that according to the security protocols, the guards stationed here knew it.
I have no idea why they needed the password when a key card or pass wasn't required, but this worked in our favor. Torture wasn't necessary because our team had Stain. She leaned over one of the guards and held her head by the temples. She wasn't a full telepath, but she could do some tricks. To erase memories, you needed to know what to delete, so she could also browse through someone's mind, though she needed physical contact for that, unlike real telepaths.
"Got it," Ino briefly muttered and released the woman's head.
The girl quickly typed in the correct code, and the elevator doors opened. Only then did we hear the siren blaring. Excellent.
We rushed into the fairly spacious elevator. Stain pressed the button for the lowest floor, and the floor beneath our feet smoothly descended.
"Move to the sides," I gave a brief command, and the girls hid on either side of the door, staying out of the potential line of fire.
They were waiting for us, and these women in military-style clothing and gear were clearly not in the mood for a "bad boy capture" scenario. Gunfire erupted, and I grimaced in pain as my body was literally riddled with bullets like a sieve! Still, I stayed on my feet, not even pretending it had affected me.
The gunwomen hesitated slightly, but clearly not as much as I expected. Honestly, I thought they'd freak out and empty their magazines, but they handled it well, firing short bursts so that if anyone ran out of ammo, they could reload while the others covered them.
Annoyed, I crouched down and, on all fours, charged forward. Thanks to Sabretooth's strength, I was too fast for these women to pose any real threat. I didn't kill them, just knocked them out for good measure.
I've taken many lives in my past, but that doesn't mean they stopped having value to me. On the contrary, I've learned to appreciate others and their right to exist. However, I also know better than anyone that death is not the end of the journey, so if it's absolutely necessary, I won't hesitate or feel remorse for anyone.
The women in security were just workers earning a paycheck, so there was no real point in killing them when I could just neutralize them. Still, they chose their profession, so that's their responsibility. Pull the trigger? Be prepared to end up on the other side of the sight. That's why I didn't feel any guilt over Ino carrying anything but a non-lethal pistol right now.
My wounds were slowly healing, so I only felt bad about the clothes. For some reason, the gunwomen hadn't aimed for my head, which was strange, but it saved my plastic helmet from damage.
Next time, though, it might not be so lucky; I'd need to think about a more suitable option. What used to stop me was the fact that for Magneto, a soldier's steel helmet is like a candy in a transparent wrapper.
Further progress through the maze-like corridors proved to be intense. We were greeted with gunfire, but the jammer did its job, and there wasn't much global coordination between the small squads. Recalling everything I'd been taught, I tried to stay ahead and knock out anyone I came across while in stealth mode.
It didn't always work out, as I had to balance speed and effectiveness. Sometimes, I had to catch enemy bullets with my body. Stain stayed right behind me, and Toad brought up the rear, covering our backs.
At one point, I caught a foreign scent and barely managed to move back, covering Ino. Something small but vicious and clawed leaped at me. Without fully seeing the opponent, I gauged its speed and immediately shifted to a more serious mode, not holding back on power. The small creature managed to rip open my stomach, but was sent flying into the wall from a strong slap.
"Gr-r-r!" the small creature growled as it started getting back up.
However, I had a few seconds to examine my opponent, or rather, opponent-ess, to be more precise. From under long black hair, animalistic green eyes stared at me, and I realized it was a ten-year-old girl. I'd never seen her before, but she looked eerily similar to a character I recognized. My memory, aided by Sabretooth's, helped me here. It was like someone had cloned Wolverine but made it female.
Considering my personal knowledge of the Marvel universe, there was no doubt about who I was facing. Laura Kinney, or X-23 as the creators called her. A clone of the well-known mutant Wolverine. Ha! Does this mean we stumbled upon the lab where they raised and trained her? Exactly! Now everything is starting to make more sense!
If I recall correctly from the comics, only her retractable claws were coated in adamantium, not her entire skeleton. They did this at an early age, which made the claws relatively short. Still, they were enough to tear open my stomach!
Damn, I can't even imagine what her genetic "father" would be like when angry! The only consolation is that in this twisted world, Wolverine remained himself, a brutish, hairy little guy with a cigar in his mouth and sharp words on his tongue. At least Sabretooth remembered him that way. Good. Female versions of characters are cool, but some personalities just shouldn't be gender-swapped, no matter what happens to this messed-up world!
For instance, Homo-Gomo Zek!
Ahem...
While I got distracted by my wet fantasies, the girl growled again and charged at me with the fury of a true berserker! Deflecting Laura's attacks mechanically, I tried to figure out what was wrong with her. She was behaving too aggressively, her body moving as if controlled only by animal instincts, not cold human logic.
This girl was supposed to be trained as an elite killer at this base, but I saw before me a completely uncontrollable, pocket-sized monster. Hmm, uncontrollable?
Toad and Stain were busy exchanging fire with another group of guards that caught up with us, so they didn't have time to distract me from more important matters. This meant I could give the clone more attention. This was one of those cases where comic book writers, in their greedy attempt to cash in on readers who buy issues with busty beauties on the cover, created a truly solid female version of a well-known character.
Seizing the girl by the throat when she tried to leap at my throat again, I extended my arm forward and tried to look into her eyes. Beautiful, green, but completely devoid of reason, as if clouded. The girl kicked and managed to scratch me with a claw that slipped out from between her toes. A dirty trick. But no matter.
What do I remember from her canon? Not much. But it seems the creators had some trick up their sleeve, like a pheromone or a trigger scent, which, when released, caused X-23 to lose all of her humanity and turn into a bloodthirsty monster, killing anyone she came across, regardless of whether she knew them.
I remembered this because, due to this substance, Laura had killed her surrogate mother and caretaker with her own hands, the only person who loved her and tried to help as best as she could.
After reflecting on this, I concluded that it was possible they had made the girl attack us under the influence of this substance. Although it was just my guess, I liked Laura as a character, so I decided I wouldn't kill little girls today.
Unfortunately, putting this plan into action turned out to be much more difficult than I had anticipated. My opponent, though small, was incredibly fast and had amazing regeneration. I think Sabretooth would envy her! She had all her safeguards turned off as well.
Her adamantium claws easily cut through my body, but no matter how much damage I dealt to X-23, it didn't stop her. Either the wound healed instantly due to her regeneration, or the girl simply ignored it.
After a bit of back and forth, I had to admit there was only one surefire way to knock her out. She'd managed to slice the tip off my nose and knock out my eye before I truly got angry, and with my hand, I drove my fingers, sharp as spears, into her shoulder, pinning her to the wall. Then I activated my original abilities and began to absorb her power. Her regeneration couldn't overcome the energy drain, and within eleven seconds, the girl lost consciousness.