Hours ago on the plane:
While the kids are busy with their own thoughts, Wolverine thinks to himself that, while he doesn’t scare easy, he is scared to death of failing these kids, like he failed most everybody else he cared about. He’s probably the last person on Earth a buncha troubled mutant teens should be learning anything from. He should have thought about that before he opened his own school. Too damn late to turn back now. Time to face up or head back to hell. Time to show he‘s got more up his sleeve than just some adamantium. After a hundred years of dragging his sorry carcass all around creation from one horror show to another, it’s way past time he finally grew up. And maybe helped these kids to do the same!
Now, the Savage Land:
Idie has withdrawn somewhere with the feral Broo. She has built a fire and announces they’ll come looking for them soon. They’ll have to hide in the caves until the others give up and go away. Please tell her he is housebroken, she mutters. She’s going to miss ice cream. And her bed. But mostly the ice cream. Even with all the dinosaurs, they will still be safer here, away from temptation. She zaps a giant insect. From more people they might have to kill. Out here, they’ll have everything they need to be happy. They have quiet, giant fruits, air that doesn’t taste like a tire fire and… Has he seen her Bible? she asks as she looks through her rucksack. Professor Logan gave it to her on the plane. Said it belonged to Kurt somebody. They have to have a Bible if they are going to stay here. Broo sniffs, smelling something.
Flashback:
Earlier, when the kids arrived in the Savage Land Wolverine took Broo aside, telling him the schematics of where the Blackbird will land. He urges Broo to remember who he is. Remember and come back!
Present:
Broo snatches up the Bible and runs away, Idie gives chase and tries to drag the bible from him. As a dinosaur interrupts, she stresses they belong here with the rest of the monsters. The dinosaur falls over and dies. Idie wonders if it was something it ate. A moment later, Wolverine bursts from its stomach, shouting: Where is he? Where the hell is his brother?
Dog Logan is battling Iron Mask’s crew while the kids watch doubtfully. Iara comments she guesses berserker rages run in the family. When Evan suggests they stop the fight she retorts they should get the hell away. Destroying the gun Dog gave her, Sprite decides whatever they do they’ll do it without those wretched devices.
Glob Herman gloats that Quentin got the crap kicked out of him. He whispers to him, asking who’s the idiot now. Soon Quentin will wish he’d listened to his old pal Glob when he had the chance. Still shaky, Quentin remarks this doesn’t look like Algebra class.
Shark Girl decides, “screw this all.” She’ll find an ocean and swim home. Sprite points out that they shouldn’t split up, but Iara cusses her out and calls her Tinkerbell. Unimpressed, Sprite threatens her and cusses back while Evan tries to make peace.
Eye Boy looks at his guns, recalling Wolverine taught him Five Card Stud on the plane. But he said it wasn’t about learning cards. It was about learning to see the game, about seeing the cards before they were dealt.
Iara is about to kill Jia and another robot attacks. Eye Boy fires the guns at him like an expert marksman and takes him out. Then he turns to the others and orders them to stop acting like a bunch of C-list reality show morons. His GPA can’t take another hit. They are passing this damn course! It’s obvious what’s happening here. Shark Girl has a deep-seated fear of abandonment, as evidenced by this light tremor in her left hand whenever she’s yelling. Sprite is desperate for the validation of her peers, as should be obvious by the occasional twitch in the corner of her right eye. Glob Herman is clearly hiding something from the rest of them—
The others look at him speechlessly as he realizes that he shot the robots. For a moment there, he was badass.
Iara gets in his face, asking where all the psychobabble came from. He has no idea; it sounded cool though.
Suddenly, a caveman flies at them. Finished with his foes, Dog tells them they are next. He calls them all spoiled brats. Buncha mollycoddled mutant monsters! Just like his damn brother! He comes here to help them. He gives them guns, cowboys, cavemen and robots to shoot at, gives them every damn thing they need to be a grown-up, and it’s still not enough! It’s never enough with them rotten little mutts, is it? He’s the hero here, and he wants to be recognized! He’s the better damn man! He’s the best Logan there ever was or will be and he wants to hear someone say it.
When the kids don’t react, he snarls if they haven’t even got the sense to run. Instead they don’t even flinch, with the exception of Glob Herman who flees.
Wolverine sees them through the trees and, for a moment, they almost look like kids who have been taught to stand tall. Like a buncha mutants who didn’t ask for their gifts or curses but are carrying the hell out of them all the same. Like X-Men.
Wolverine, Idie and Broo join them. Is he the one they are fighting? Idie asks. Because she feels like fighting someone right now. Wolverine orders Dog to step away from the kids, but Dog replies they are his now. Everything James ever had in the world is gonna be his. Everything he ever stole from Dog.
Wolverine replies that Dog doesn’t want to hurt the students and he doesn’t want to hurt Dog. Don’t make him! Last chance to stop this! This stops when one of them hasn’t got any more blood to bleed, Dog replies. So damn be it, Wolverine replies and sheathes his claws. He won’t fight him. Dog just has to kill him. Then he’ll just have to die, Dog replies and hits him.
Evan wants to interfere but Eye-Boy tells him he thinks Wolverine knows what he is doing. While Dog hits him, accusing him of being the worthless one, Iron Mask regains consciousness and fires his gun at Dog. However, the bullet is stopped in front of Dog’s face, courtesy of Quentin’s telekinesis. Dog begins to realize what he’s done. Iron Mask trains his gun at Dog and demands to know what the hell is going on here. He demands Dog start talking.
Wolverine also suggests that they should talk. The worst part is, Dog replies, the bastard old man was right. He grabs his time shard and he and Iron Mask disappear.
Quentin announces he is too tired to make a snide comment. Can they go home now? Class dismissed, Logan replies. Eye-Boy asks after Glob Herman and Logan replies curtly he won’t be joining them. His nose tells him he’s made other arrangements. So they are leaving without him? Trevor asks. But he said they’d all leave or none of them… He knows what he said! Now get to the damn plane and shut up! Wolverine snaps. And give him those guns! Trevor silently sulks he was actually cool for five seconds. He supposes that means they all failed. Surprisingly, Wolverine tells them they didn’t fail. He did.
Elsewhere, a hooded figure tells Glob Herman that they must away. Can’t they just hold up for a minute? Herman asks hopefully. He was hoping they’d all come chasing after him, so he could give them the finger as he flew away, looking awesome and stuff. They are no doubt too heartbroken to move, the other replies. They will miss him terribly, he’s certain. Now come!
Herman complains that on the plane ride here Wolverine told him he was expelled. Can he believe it? Told him he’d have to earn his way back to school. Like he cared? He was never going back to his stupid school anyway. He means this is awesome. A big time super-villain picking him up like this! It’s great to go to a school where he’ll be finally respected, you know.
Yes, respected. That is the fate that awaits him, the other mocks as he grabs Glob with his foot claws and flies off. At the Hellfire Academy, he will be respected over and over for many hours at a time. Until he is bleeding at the ears from so much respect.
Even Herman begins to notice this doesn’t sound good. Sauron orders him to be silent or he will show him right here how much he respects him.
As they head towards the plane, Wolverine figures the kids hate him and have every right to. He’s supposed to know what he’s doing but nothing had ever prepared him for this. And most every instinct he has is telling him to run away or scream at them till he can’t scream no more, or drop them in the woods with a pack of wolves and hope for the best. He’s learning as they go, same as them. Logans weren’t really cut out to be teachers. Or brothers, for that matter. He figures the only real family he ever had wasn’t built on blood anyway. It was something you had to earn. Something you had to fight for.
Back in his cabin, Dog Logan is being beaten up by his older self who orders him to say his name. His name is Dog, he moans. He’s the greatest Logan who ever lived. Damn right he is, the older Dog replies and continues his beating. Keep saying it until you mean it…
