Recalling recent events, Logan hopped a ride up to the Canadian arctic research station for a nice quiet visit with James and Heather Hudson, aka Guardian and Vindicator. He never reckoned on bein’ barricaded in a dry freezer with a pack o’ wild things clawin’ at the door. He never reckoned things would go this bad.
Inside the freezer, Heather informs the crew that Simpson is going into deep shock and that she needs to be medivaced out of there. That means making a dash for the satellite bounce transmitter out in the main lab where those creatures are still gnawing on poor Sverdrup. James, in his Guardian suit, says that Wolverine and he will make the foray and that Harry Tabeshaw and DeLong will “hold the fort.” He then asks Logan if he’s ready. Putting his cigarette out in between his fingers, Logan tells Jimmy let’s do it.
As they rush into the main lab area, Logan and James are confronted by a number of critters akin to the Hunter in Darkness. Each of them – three hundred pounds o’ nasty with claws and teeth that don’t stop. They would’ve stayed frozen in the ice up there if humans hadn’t messed up the ozone layer by usin’ too much hair spray and deodorant. Ain’t modern technology wonderful?
James inquires as to why the Hunters hate them so much. Logan replies they don’t care about them one way or the other, just like they don’t care about the pig they slice their bacon off of. Rushing towards two of the Hunters Logan determines that he can’t blame them either. It’s their job to try to eat them; it’s his job to stay uneaten. In short time, James has reached the transmitter and tells Logan that he has it. He calls out to head back to the dry freeze.
At that moment, a multitude more Hunters descend upon their location. James wonders where they are all coming from while Logan mentions that there’s too many – they have to cut down the odds. He then yells out to Harry to cover them; they’re comin’ in low. From inside the dry freeze, Harry tells DeLong that he heard Logan and gives him the order to lay down a field of fire at head height. DeLong mentions that they have to re-barricade the door. Harry says not until their guys are safe back inside.
Once Logan and James make their way into the freezer, Harry immediately closes the door. One of the Hunters is able to lodge his arm in the door, thus preventing it from closing fully. Harry fixes that by unloading his gun into the arm, eventually shooting the hand off of the Hunter. As it falls to the floor, Harry tells James that he better start calling for help. Heather adds that there’s one problem. Even if they get the radio working and get a call out, nobody’s going to be able to fly in the weather. She finishes by saying that she thinks it’s going to be a long night.
Before long, Heather informs the rest of the crew that Simpson has died. Logan walks over to her and tells Heather that he will handle it. However, DeLong coldly announces that the rest of them will be joining her if they don’t get the radio hooked into the power line ASAP. James sarcastically says to DeLong that he’s not a big one for compassion, is he? Harry pipes in that he doesn’t understand this. He was always sure that the Hunter in Darkness that he tracked down for Parvenu was the last of its kind. He’s never seen any other spoor of a familiar beast. It’s almost as if the creatures were displaced in time.
James asks DeLong, the team biologist, what he thinks of what Harry just said. DeLong says the creatures are pack hunters, that’s for certain. They cooperate toward a common goal. James asks that they have a mercenary then, a leader they can try to neutralize. DeLong replies there are a number of possibilities. Could be the most aggressive male, that’s the biological imperative, but… James asks but what. DeLong says that humans deviated from that primary imperative. The physically strongest doesn’t lead the pack among Homo sapiens. If that’s the case there, they’re in deep…
Before DeLong can finish his thought, the pack of the Hunters, led by an older looking one, cuts the generator line. DeLong finishes his thought that if they defer judgment to the oldest and wisest, they may be able to accumulate lore and develop strategy. Logan quips that’s not good. He then tells the others that he’s goin’ out there. If the can make it to the loading suit… James pipes in and says that he’s going to go with him. Logan tells him no way. Somebody has to stay there and be in charge, that’s his job. He then says that the creatures out there can’t see very good. They hunt at night, have good sniffers, and some sort o’ infrared vision to detect body heat. He then hands James some flares and some thermite and says they might get them confused enough to miss his rush for the loading suit. Heather brings out part of Simpson’s thermal suit and puts the jacket on Logan.
She tells him that if he wears it, he may dispel his own heat signature. DeLong mentions that Sverdrup got wasted in seconds with that loading suit on, what makes him think he has a better chance. Logan tells him that Sverdrup didn’t have his reflexes and to unbolt the door and get ready to cover him. Once the door opens, James, Heather, Harry, and DeLong cover Logan as he rushes out into the waiting hordes of Hunters. As he tears at the over-grown hyenas, Hunters, he tells them to get outta his way for the ol’ canuckle-head is comin’ through. Nearing the suit, he hopes that the batteries aren’t dead in it.
Hundreds of miles to the south, Bloodscream, Albert, and Elsie Dee are running over the Canadian countryside. Elsie tells Albert to use his internal twansmitters and modems to tap into government data bases. They need an update on Wogan, pwonto. Albert tells her that he’s getting an *bzt* update from a satellite bounce right now and that all communications with the *bzt* research station have been shut down by *bzt* weather. Bloodscream calls out to Elsie that her pace is beyond even his endurance. He is no android as they art. Elsie says to him that he’s a mutant, isn’t he? Bloodscream replies that he is. A shape shifter he is, not a font of unlimited power. He tells her she hast run him to his limit.
Elsie then tells Albert that they have to stop and let Mr. Bwoodscweam west and asks if he can scan the howizon up ahead. Albert powers up for *bzt* long-range scan and runs infrared and *bzt* spectrographic narrow field scans. He discovers that there are very familiar *bzt* readings out there – match pheromones – yes, they have a *bzt* match. He then adds that it is *bzt* impossible. He went *bzt* back in time with them. He was trapped in the *bzt* eighteenth century, he couldn’t still be *bzt* alive. Hearing the news, Elsie gets excited and exclaims puppy is there. Of course he could still be awive. He wasn’t human and he certainly wasn’t a wegular wun-of-the-mill wolf or anything. Maybe Forge was able to…
From behind her, Bloodscream thinks to himself that a living thing that hasn’t survived these long ages. The pagan necromancer Dagoo, who cursed him with his nether-life and the need for blood – his formula for the sorcerous potion included the blood of a man who ageth not. Perchance, a substitution might suffice to alter the effect – the blood of a beast that ageth not. Before he can ponder that thought further, Elsie tells him wet’s go and takes off running. As they run, she says that Mr. Bwoodscweam has to warn Mr. Wogan about his tewwible illness and tell him how to save himself.
As they continue to run, Bloodscream asks Elsie what the circumstances were of their temporal displacement. Elsie indicates that it was all because of the skeweton with the adamantium cwaws. Albert, puppy, and her found it in a Siksika buwial mound, and it tested out to be over two-hundwed years old. Spiwal and Mystique danced in fwom the future wooking for a cwuise missile to help save Mr. Wogan at the end of time, the Cwunch. So, they gave Spiwal the missile in exchange for sending them back in time to wescue Mr. Wogan in the past but they awwived in the middle of a big bwouhaha to say the weast. After Albert wan the gauntwet and got made war chief, there wasn’t an awful wot weft to do.
Hearing the tale, Bloodscream tells her that surely she hast omitted a goodly part of the tale. Elsie tells him to wook, she’s just skipping to the part about puppy. They wooked evewywhere for Mr. Wogan, so they could wescue him from whatever howwible fate it was that caused his skeweton to be in that buwial mound but they never, ever found him. They weally and twuly searched high and low for Mr. Wogan. But the more they used their sensors, the more they depweted their battewies. They were appwoaching the time when they would have to turn back and put themselves to system sleep but puppy wouldn’t give up. She thinks there’s a special bond between puppy and Mr. Wogan that they awen’t pwivy to. One day, they wan into a whole pack of cweatures just wike puppy and he weft with them.
Bloodscream asks if they art certain the beastie is the very same one. Albert indicates the pheromone signature is *bzt* as exact as a fingerprint. The beastie is the *bzt* Hunter in Darkness, all right.
Back at the complex, Logan is able to get to the loading suit and equip himself with it. As he begins to move with it on, he mentions that it sure ain’t adamantium but it’ll have to do. Inside the complex, DeLong tells James that the contraption moves like pig iron in mud and that his friend is going to wind up like Sverdrup. James responds that he wouldn’t count Wolverine out too soon he’s always been the type of fighter who gets his “legs” back in the final round. Outside, Logan proceeds to tear through the various Hunters. He thinks to himself that he ain’t no scientific boxer. He copped his throw-down chops from Shingen. He said “master technique, become one with the weapon, but always let the animal loose for the fight.” Logan knows that he never got the technique part down but he sure never had any trouble lettin’ the animal loose. Once he tears through most of the Hunters, he lets loose a guttural howl.
At that moment, he realizes that it’s time for the main event, time to trot out the biggest and the baddest or maybe the oldest. When the Hunter appears before Logan, he notices that the Hunter is ancient. Logan sees that this is one that’s got this far by sheer strength o’ mean. Logan silently remarks that so has he… and so pops his claws. When he does, the Hunter hears the claws and begins to sniff. The old Hunter lets out a howl and Logan figures out that the Hunter recognizes him, just like he knows him to be the Hunter in Darkness. Logan wonders how he got so old so fast and if he is rememberin’ back to that time when they first crossed paths. It was back in that long ago lost time, when he was runnin’ wild in the forest, his mind just a red blur o’ pain. Back before he met the Hudsons? It was just another animal sufferin’ in the night, another mean little life about to fade out in the cold. Back when Logan encountered the Hunter caught in a bear-trap. He then opened up the trap and set the Hunter free, saving his life. Back in present time, all of the Hunters have left.
James explains that the old one lit out and the others just followed him and he wonders why. Logan, shedding the suit, says maybe he remembered somethin’. DeLong raises his rifle and says that he’ll give him something to remember. Just then, Logan punches him out cold and tells him he doesn’t think so. He then asks Harry about a ride to which Harry says as soon as they weld his oleo strut.
Far to the south, Albert informs Elsie that Logan is *bzt* gone. He is traveling *bzt* by air. Elsie says that they’ll just have to keep twying until they find him and asks what about puppy. Albert tells them that he has gone and *bzt* covered his trail. He and his kind *bzt* have removed themselves from their ken. Bloodscream then yells out that all is lost. If Logan travels by air, they cannot warn him in time. Albert then scans for his *bzt* homing beacon and ultimately finds it. Elsie says to Albert that he found their stealth bomber. Spiwal and Mystique must have secweted it for them. Albert informs her that it is *bzt* hidden well, it is sitting on the *bzt* bottom of *bzt* Hudson Bay.
The next morning, Harry’s plane lands in the forest near the mountains. Logan told her he’d come back there every year at springtime. He’s a little late this time around. Funny how he forgot how beautiful it is up there this time o’ year. He keeps thinkin’ o’ this piece of country as a place o’ death and the truth is, it’s just overflowin’ with life. “Ain’t no place to be sad.” That’s what Harry Tabeshaw said. He said, “The ghosts of those you love are tormented by your tears.” In the spirit world, they walk with the wind. Harry asked him, “How would he like it if somebody came to call on him and all they did was beat their chest.” He also told him to sing his spirit song for her. Logan told him that he didn’t know the words but Harry replied “ain’t got no words, you just open your heart and let it flow out.”
Kneeling in front of Silver Fox’s grave, Logan realizes that Harry is right. He shouldn’t be sad remembering these things. These are memories that make his heart soar like an eagle in the August sky. He hears her laughing and the half-remembered smell of her passes by, just out o’ reach. Standing there, looking to the sky, Logan recalls that those were days of sunshine.
