Upon finding the cross Wolverine was nailed to empty,
Donald Pierce angrily asks where he is! In his anger, he rips the cross out of
the ground and throws it at the Reavers. While the others scatter, Lady
Deathstrike simply swats it out of the way, and tells Pierce he’s being
unseemly. Pierce sends the rest of the Reavers to scour the area for Wolverine,
while he admires Deathstrike, both her mechanical enhancements and her
personality. She ends up flipping him over, telling him she gives as good as
she gets! As Reese, Cole, and Macon search one of the houses, Jubilee hides
from them in the shadows and scrounges for food when they’re not looking.
Jubilee heads back through the vents with her haul and wonders what the Reavers
want with the X-Men anyway. Jubilee comes upon the room Pierce is in and nearly
gets caught by him, staying stock still in the shadows so as not to be
detected. Eventually he leaves, and Jubilee chides herself for being so scared.
She finally makes it back to her little hidey hole
where she left the unconscious, injured Wolverine. She gets to work at trying
to change his bandages, as Wolverine awakens and hallucinates her as Carol
Danvers. He then hallucinates Nick Fury as well, confusing Jubilee with his
rambling to them. Suddenly more aware, he grabs Jubilee and demands to know
what she’s doing, as the Carol and Fury hallucinations try to tell him that
she’s a friend. He pops his claws, demanding to know the truth, prompting Jubilee
to blast him away in fear. The hallucinations chide him as Wolverine apologizes
before slipping into unconsciousness once more. Meanwhile, down in the
sub-basement of the base, Pierce and Bonebreaker try to use the advanced
computer systems to locate Wolverine. They spot Pretty Boy in Wolverine’s room,
where he’s found the honor blade given to Wolverine by Mariko. He takes it for
a spin, which Lady Deathstrike takes offense to, given only a noble or champion
of house Yashida may wield it. Later, Bonebreaker notes that the computer
systems seem to have changed, giving him trouble locating Wolverine. Pierce
then decides to summon his cyborg dingoes to get the job done.
At the same time, Jubilee finds Wolverine sitting with
Gateway out in the open and angrily stalks up to them, wondering what the deal
is! She paces around the two of them, going on a long tirade about how
stressful this whole thing has been and how underappreciated she feels! The
fire then flares up and Gateway vanishes, Wolverine revealing the whole thing
had just been one of his dream states and covers Jubilee’s mouth, telling her
the Reavers are on the prowl. Pierce orders the Reavers to split up to look for
Wolverine, leading to Skullbuster, Bonebreaker, and Pretty Boy searching the
tunnels. They spot Wolverine and open fire, but end up shooting a hole through
to the bottom of the lake, thereby flooding the tunnels, just as Wolverine
planned. Elsewhere, Deathstrike ends up finding Jubilee’s hidey hole and leaves
the honor sword there to reclaim when she’s killed Wolverine! Elsewhere still,
Pierce and his dingoes locate Wolverine, who makes short work of the dogs.
Wolverine goads Pierce, leaving him open to get blasted by Jubilee, knocking
the whole wall down on him! Assuming this won’t be the last, Wolverine and
Jubilee continue their way through the tunnels, as Jubilee complains about
Wolverine’s macho attitude! To be continued!
Give that special marvelite a timely gift