19997/X-Men: Polar Plunge, Part 3

X-Men: Polar Plunge, Part 3
Date of Scene:	22 February 2025
Location:	Resolve Station, Ellesmere Island
Synopsis:	Enough trudging through a winter wonderland. Time to hit the steam room.
Cast of Characters:	Logan Howlett, Rogue, Noriko Ashida, Laura Kinney, Monet St. Croix

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Logan Howlett has posed:
The Situation: After the X-Men searched Resolve Station for signs of the missing scientists, they were set upon by people in the process of being transformed into Wendigos. Blue Team fought the Wendigos while Red Team searched the Bunker, discovering a second research facility.

After members of Red Team were captured, they managed to rescue themselves, and prevent Wolverine's bones from being melted back down in the most expensive attempt at recycling ever conceived.

By killing Subject W, aka Dr. Margaret Sadler, Rogue was able to end the threat of the Wendigos. Covering the X-Men's escape while they traveled to the Blackbird, whe remained behind to deal with the fallout.

With a break in the storm, the X-Men have returned, finally able to land the Blackbird next to Resolve Station. But authorities from Department H are going to arrive at any moment, and the X-Men will need to complete any remaining business here before these assets fall into government hands.

Place: Resolve Station, Ellesmere Island
Time: A Few Hours Later...

As the Blackbird's engines rapidly cool in the background, a familiar hairy Canadian mutant trudges through the snow toward Resolve Station. No longer adorned in his Wolverine Snowsuit, Logan has instead made do with some mismatched scraps from the research facility and the extra gear aboard the Blackbird. Simple blue denim pants and a pair of snowboots from some unfortunate donor, with an oversized parka thrown over his body and worn unzipped, exposing dangerous amounts of chest hair to the frigid winds. Where he picked up the crutches is anyone's guess.

With most of the Weapon Plus operatives in the wind, aside from the few that have been detained, the facility is far less exciting than it was a few hours ago. But the scientists and workers who populated Resolve Station seem to have mostly returned to normal at the point, and already attempts to put the station back in order have begun.

Logan's legs appear to be working, but not especially well. It's understandable, given that the majority of the flesh below his belly button was melted off a couple of hours ago. He appears to be roughly as cranky as usual, and clearly isn't enjoying trying to navigate snow with a pair of crutches. But the odds are that he won't need them much longer. There will be no trace of the damage he received, and the emotional scars will simply coexist alongside the myriad traumas that he's going to get around to processing one of these days.

The snow has stopped falling, and although it's still very dark the winds are howling far more gently. As he approaches the gate, Logan sniffs the air for signs of their new target. They failed to save the original target, but that was never in the cards for poor Dr. Sadler.

Rogue has posed:
When the Blackbird returned to Resolve, it found Rogue standing out in front of the facility. She was still in her 'Ultimate' form, the wings of white gossimer were wrapped around her shoulders, and her eyes were closed. She was utilizing the telekinetic powers that had been pushed back to the surface of her genes, to pull the glass out of the snow, and reform it across all of the gaps in the exterior dome of the facility. She was piecing the glass back together, and using that same telekinetic control to mold the glass shards back in to their original intended shapes. Rebuilding, repairing. She had been doing this since the rest of her team had left.

Why? Because the survivors were recovering. Many of them were complaining about the cold, and thus Rogue had to seal the building back up, from the damage done to its exterior facade. Thus, here she was, doing just as she had promised the survivors of this strange incident.

When the others returned, however, Rogue paused her work, with only a little left to do on the southern edge of the spherical curve. She regarded Logan, on crutches, and spread her wings, as she used them to propel herself up in to the air, and over to land in the intersection before him, of where he seemed to be headed.

"This was far worse than you said it would be, Logan." Rogue's sultry voice, somehow sounding even more sultry, her skin still gleaming metal, and her braided pony tail was undone, leaving her hair unkempt and wild about her shoulders in her tattered X-Men uniform.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko made it to the Blackbird with Logan.  It wasn't long before she was considering falling asleep in the pilot's chair, convinced it must be the most comfortable one, but she doesn't get that far.  In one of the compartments, she has a few high calorie bars stashed.  It's pretty much nothing, but it's more than absolutely nothing.  After devouring two of the five, she passes out on the floor, the remaining three and empty wrappers scattered around her.

After waking up again, Noriko found the first aid kit and bandaged up her stomach.  Then she sat on the deck and grabbed the closest food bar to limply unwrap and devour it little stop-motion spurts and stops.

"Uggh.  I'm going to be haunted forever," Noriko groans over the earlier sight of everything Logan, her hand flopping back down to the deck, defeated by the images in her mind.

Laura Kinney has posed:
Laura Kinney is a horrifying mess to the awakening staff. But being stuck in the hole with her, they're *grateful* to be helped out by her, before she hops up and pulls herself out. Evil scientists part of a scheme to do evil science experiments on humans? Ehhh..... we won't talk about what rules were or weren't followed. But she finds one of the dead goons, taking his jacket to clean herself off. Mopping up the blood. Her claws she cleans as two sets of red streaks in the snow.

And only once she's cleaned up, does she return to the others. folding her arms, surveying the situation. Seeing Logan on CRUTCHES, she squints a good long moment, and raises a hand slowly in greeting.

Later, in a quiet moment, she will find him and simply ask "Did they get anything they wanted?" Because if they did, she may have to return. Or find wherever else they lurk.

Logan Howlett has posed:
The snow is nearly to the tops of Logan's snowboots, which are themselves nearly to his knees. A couple of sizes too big, which is hardly ideal, but it's better to go a bit loose when one is regrowing the skin on one's feet. As he hobbles to a stop before her, the feral mutant does his best to suppress a pained grimace. He's never a whiner under ordinary conditions, and seems to feel guilty about the entire ordeal. So instead, he forces a smile. His upper lip seems to weigh a ton at the moment, however.

"I thought it was a pretty easy mission, up until the mythical flesh eating monsters and the paramilitary hit squad showed up."

Crutches are readjusted in the snow, and he gives the southern belle an up and down lookover, concern evident on his face. But he says nothing that would indicate it, lest he find himself telekinetically peeled from his bones, telepathically reverted to childhood, or Fastball Specialed into the Sun. One never knows exactly what one will get when dealing with an X-Treme Rogue.

"We gotta clear outta here fast... before the mounties show up... think you can help me snatch up one Adamantium Melter?"

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix has worked at gathering together supplies, at least, to help treat the injured from the Blackbird. She glances warily over her shoulder then, "Agreed. Rogue, do you want to handle it or should I?" She would inquire, while trying to gauge how injured those of the team are. Monet has some broken ribs and other injuries of various levels and some spinal punctures through her from the blades of the WEndigos. But she's patched herself up with the FIrst Aid kit and done some sutures from the auto-doc and is functional so long as they don't get thrown into another fight.

Another thought does hit her, at least of a mroe amusing level. "What is the going rate for secondary adamantium on the black market?"

Rogue has posed:
Rogue glanced in Laura's direction, before her eyes went back to Logan. She considered his words, but didn't comment at him. Instead, her eyes looked over his head, toward Noriko. "Monet... Help Nori inside. The survivors have put together a meal in the mess hall area. She should probably eat some food. It will help her feel better faster.. You too," She nodded toward Monet. "We can worry about the rest later, I think..."

Her stare went back to Logan then, before she glanced in the direction of the bunker that she tore to pieces earlier. "At least we know where the tax payer money was going now. To a scientific witch's pot, meant ta melt you down inta a little ball of adamantium..." She noted to Logan, before she moved to offer him her hand. "Do you need help getting inside? I think it best you get healed up, before we do any rearranging of the furniture around here, Mistah..." She said, her voice almost monotone, likely due to her concentrating on so many mental minds interfering with her own. She's no expert at telepathy, but the experiences she has at the surface of her mind again, due certainly yield her enough knowledge to know how to control this much extra power.

"Laura... how are you feeling? Can you help Logan find his way to the mess hall?"

Would anyone actually take Rogue up on going to eat food, rather than diving in to the various left over issues? Part of her thought they definitely would not.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko's next item of business is to get up off her butt and go back down into underground research center, find some kind of security office, and snatch all the dampeners and shock collars, tossing them into the sack she had her snacks in.

Then the speedster backtracks to the commissary and digs through the refrigerators to eat all the research scientists' sack lunches, all the snacks stashed at their desks, and so on.  Well at least not the expired stuff.  It's slim pickings.  She even makes it back to the group with a bottle of booze, which she offers to Logan.

"Found this.  You want it?"  Noriko doesn't drink, mostly because there seems to be no point to in her mind.  "I can take it back to the bird if you want-adamantium?  I want some.  My gauntlets are-"  Always busting, but she just holds up her naked hands.  She seems run down, something Rogue easily notices.

"I ate some old food, few sack lunches, a Snickers bar, and a few meal bars," Noriko plays tough like this is enough to make up for showing up to the fight already on empty.  But she won't fight things.

Laura Kinney has posed:
Laura Kinney inhales deeply. Calming herself after allowing herself to go essentially into weapon mode, she approaches Rogue. "I am unhurt. I can help him, if he wants the help." She flexes her hands, rubbing along her knuckles. Considering something. Then... deciding against it, and with a nod to Rogue, going off in Logan's direction.

Logan Howlett has posed:
One of the researchers who appears to be the ranking official is attempting to direct the workers who haven't already told him to choke on a chode. Systems are coming back up, and it appears that only the main Research Facility really sustained extensive damage, aside from the giant hole in the Bunker. They're going to need a lot of plywood. Assuming that the entire base isn't summarily disavowed and defunded after this fiasco.

Leaning his armpits on his crutches, Logan takes the bottle of booze and looks at eagerly the label. Any disappointment that he might have had from the liquor being clear is quickly replaced with the sort of enthusiasm that a kid might have on Christmas if he knew he was getting a Playstation 6 two years early.

"Grain alcohol! Highly flammable... may cause blindness... yes please!"

Tossing the top into the snow, Logan turns the bottle up, and chugs the Everclear as if he were the star of a Mountain Dew commercial who has just finished a particularly impressive snowboard trick. Almost immediately, he seems to feel better, and lets his crutches fall to the sides as he shuffles forward slowly in the snow and wipes his mouth on the back of his mittens.

Somewhere in the facility, Dr. Ellie Parsons is going to wonder what happened to her mittens and snowboots. It's a mystery that may never be solved.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix would take a moment to send to Logan <<Do we want to render them unconscious so that they can all be picked up by the authorities and give a call to SHIELD?>> As opposed to the local Canadian jurisdictions. But she doesn't have much of a sense as to how Weapon Plus operates. Or to who was in charge of this. Was this something off the books done by one of the separate research cells? An official governmental site gone rogue? Or where someone else had seized it and hijacked it, putting the survivors to the culling?

She's there over to help Logan prop himself up if need be, before turning over to Laura and focusing <<I.. Cannot fully scan. Is there anyone here that by their body language is hostile or might be associated over with the more hostile elements?>> In other words, is there someone fully affiliated with the project they can take in for questioning.

Rogue has posed:
When Logan discarded the crutches, Rogue took hold of them with her mind. She summarily floated them through the snow flurries falling around them, sending them right up inside of the jet's interior. again. "SHIELD would be a good choice. But before we call for them, we have to figure out what all we want from this place. If Logan has ideas on elements of that bunker helping him, or us, with tracking down who did this, then we have to procure them. Scott and Rachel are inside, helping the rest. I do think SHIELD is the right play here, but we might want to hold off for just a bit longer."

She turned, her wings swept back around herself, as she covered herself with their white feathered embrace, possibly because of her heavily battered suit, but she also does not seem to be particularly effected by the chill anymore.

"Who was the man who lead us here?" She asked next. "He fled before all of this began. He took one of the snow mobiles. We should find him, because he clearly knew this was a trap, and he lead us here for that purpose. He knows more than he let on, and well... we should pay him a visit."

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko smirks at Logan's reaction and offers a little nod, which he probably misses when he's so busy chugging.  "That works."

During a little pause in the talk, Noriko rushes inside of the research station to eat many bowls of soup.  She doesn't wait for Monet. Each time she lines up for more, she has on different accessories (some bloody) to vary up her look.

When Noriko returns, she's wearing some glasses, a scarf, and a peacoat.  "So what are we nicking?  Because I think I saw some scientist's sick ass bike in there."

Logan Howlett has posed:
The staff here included doctors. Some of them are even still alive. So the triage that's been set up is fairly effective, and the injured are being cared for whether they were scientists, janitors, or rogue paramilitary hit squad operatives. As Logan hobbles forward in the snow, he looks at some of the detainees to his left, all of whom are shooting daggers at him with their eyes. Understandable, since it appears that they were specifically trained to bring Logan back in, either for retraining or recycling.

Grain alcohol is strong enough to give someone like Logan a buzz, at least temporarily. It helps that it's 95% alcohol. He wouldn't be able to track Noriko's movements normally anyway, but his reaction time is way slowed down within a few seconds.

"Unfortunately darlin', we don't get to pick who's coming. Canadian feds have been waitin' for a break in the storm. I can't imagine they'll be long in getting here. So we got maybe ten minutes to look through their files, try to find some clue about where their Director vanished to, and melt down their Adamantium Melter."

Another swig, and he's finished nearly half the bottle. If he were anyone else, he'd be dead within a couple of hours. Instead, he'll be sober again within a couple of minutes.

"Gives me a real uneasy feelin' them being able to melt my bones back down. And I got enough trouble sleepin' already."

The Cauldron is probably too big to fit into the Blackbird, unless they leave some of the seats behind. But somebody's sitting on somebody's lap then, and Logan's legs don't have any skin yet.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix would close her eyes and try to think, before offering over to Rogue "There should be some magnetic clamps in the Blackbird used for when extravehicular missions are required that should suffice for a short range flight. I can put one of the auto-hacking viruses that Cypher ha smade into the primary network and that hopefully will get access to thier database." Her offer is a little timid here.

This entire place has her on edge. Why has she seen so many places like this that exist as nightmares made reality? Sinister. Stryfe. Apocalypse. Weapon X.

She's heading back towards the main base at her best possible flight speed if not stopped after fumbling around for the virus program. Monet isn't quite stumbling in flight but she's nto far off from tie ither.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"I can look through their files once things are compromised," though Noriko will probably borrow a pencil from one of the desks to pluck at the keyboard.  The speedster sighs quickly in a moment of internal jealousy.  If only she had regenerative powers, she could slam down so much.

"How /are/ going to fit that Cauldron?" Noriko asks before she even thinks about it.  "I mean I could carry two seats back myself," and skip the flight, she implies.  Her arms stretch outward and then she does some windmills with them, creating a small, frigid gust to her sides.

"Good idea Monet.  I want to see if there are any advanced batteries here.  If anyone sees any, let me know," though Noriko is likely to get around to searching the rest of the facilities first.  Nori's brain kind of hops around as different parts of it parallel process, "Maybe someone can use that Cauldron thing to make me some sick gauntlets."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue stood off to the side of the main entrance to the research center. Flood lights were on, aimed across the yard, and through their shining light, she looked toward the bunker that had been ripped open.

"We don't need ta keep this thing..." She quietly said, with white bangs streakd across her face. "I'll go take it down. Hopefully they can't just easily remake another one, though." She said, as her wings came open once more, and her boots began to step forward across the freshly fallen snow.

"It should not be a problem, I'll still have all of these... extra abilities for the next two or three days."

Where had she gotten them in the first place, though?

"Logan is right though. We should be gone before unfriendly authorities arrive." Rogue stated, on her way through the snow toward the torn-open entrance to the bunker.

Logan Howlett has posed:
Approximately Ten Minutes Later...

Logan pauses in the Blackbird's rear entryway, looking back out at Resolve Station as more of the lights flicker back on inside the compound's walls. Though the aboveground Research Facility is in much better shape than they left it a few hours ago, the smoke rising up from the Bunker likely means that the secondary facility has been destroyed. But thoroughly enough to keep their more sinister research avenues from being reopened? Only time will tell.

The Blackbird's radar shows helicopters only a few minutes out. They carry official government ID codes from the Canadian authorities. It's likely that much of what transpired here will be hushed up once the authorities arrive. And it's highly unlikely that the X-Men can expect to receive a thank you card in the mail.

As he walks into the craft, his legs seem a lot more sturdy, and there's a suspicious lack of Everclear within the cabin. But on the way back to his seat, Logan stops at a simple steel box that sits conspicuously strapped in. Hastily cleaned out, the box now contains the earthly remains of Dr. Margaret Sadler. Logan places a bare hand on the makeshift casket, a somber look on a face that is often mistakenly referred to as brutal.

"We're takin' you home, Margie. Should be smooth flyin' from here to Winnipeg..."