Anyone could tell that Laura was a strange child. She had a fierceness that didn't match her age, yet she was oddly obedient. When Charles told her to stay put, she followed his instructions to the letter, ignoring everything going on outside.
Even when a few mercenaries barged in, she kept quietly eating her cereal with milk as if nothing had happened…
The scene cut to the outside, where Donald Pierce was watching the warehouse. Suddenly, a barrage of gunfire erupted, mixed with screams of agony and terror.
Moments later, the little girl—Laura—emerged from the warehouse, carrying a blood-soaked round object in her arms. It was a severed head.
Expressionless, Laura hurled the head at the group of mercenaries led by Donald Pierce, then strode toward them without the slightest hint of fear.
Oddly enough, it was Donald who hesitated, even looked a bit rattled. This surprised Logan, who was lying motionless nearby, but he quickly understood why they were so wary of the little girl.
Laura clenched her tiny fists—and just like Logan—sharp claws sprang from between her knuckles. She only had two on each hand, but they were more than enough to slice through flesh and bone with ease.
Then she launched herself at the mercenaries, fearless and ferocious. Though small in stature, she was agile and deadly. After a brief skirmish, she darted back into the warehouse.
The mercenaries opened fire, but Donald stopped them. Ordinary bullets couldn't harm her—she had regenerative abilities just like Logan.
Logan was stunned by her powers, but while the mercenaries were distracted, he used the chance to crawl into a vehicle. Meanwhile, Laura began her hunt inside the warehouse.
She was like a wild little wolf cub—fearless and brutal. Against large, well-trained mercenaries, she used her size and the terrain to her advantage, darting in and out, slicing through them like a hot knife through butter. Every so often, she'd let out a childish snarl that brought back memories of Logan in his prime.
Outside the screen, Peter Parker was completely captivated, eyes wide in admiration. "Whoa… she's so cool!"
Stephen chuckled and teased, "What's this? Falling for her already?"
Peter's face flushed red, and he waved his hands. "No, no! I'm just curious. She's so young… how can she kill people without even flinching? And what's her connection to Logan?"
Pietro was also watching Laura intently. His voice turned serious. "I recognize that look in her eyes. She's a weapon—no, an experiment, designed and raised to kill."
Pietro and his sister Wanda had also been test subjects in their past—volunteers, yes, but they had seen others who weren't as lucky. Seeing Laura now struck a chord with him.
Peter was shocked. "But she's just a kid!"
Pietro glanced at him. "The younger the test subject, the better the results. Some are even modified while still in the womb."
Stephen shook his head, his voice heavy. "That's far too cruel for anyone… especially a child."
Peter fell silent. At his age, he still hadn't fully grasped the darker corners of the world.
On screen, the little wolf cub moved like a cold-blooded predator. She not only had claws on her fists but also retractable talons on her feet. Viewers might have found her cool, even awesome.
But for Logan—watching from the sidelines—it wasn't cool. It just hurt.
He recognized the claws—adamantium, the same unbreakable metal grafted into his own body. He knew the pain that came with it. As a grown man, it had nearly broken him. He couldn't imagine what Laura must have endured to survive it.
But Laura wasn't just tough—she was smart. She knew she couldn't kill them all, so she lured the mercenaries away, hoping to escape.
Unfortunately, Donald Pierce was waiting outside. While she was locked in combat with another mercenary, he ambushed her with a modified hunting rifle. A sharpened spear fired from the gun and pierced straight through Laura's chest.
The audience watching gasped. Luckily, thanks to her healing ability, the injury wasn't fatal—but she was too weakened to fight back.
The mercenaries moved in and cuffed her with special restraints. Just as they were about to take her away, Logan reentered the fight.
He had a chance to escape with Charles, but he turned back to save her. The old wolf and the young cub fought side by side, carving a bloody path through the mercenaries. Under a hail of gunfire, they drove away from the abandoned factory.
The mercenaries gave chase, but thanks to a well-timed train cutting them off, Logan managed to lose them—for the time being.
But the danger wasn't over. Donald hadn't killed Caliban after all—instead, he was forcing him to use his powers to track Logan and the others.
Meanwhile, Logan stopped at a gas station to rest. From the cellphone left behind by the Mexican woman, he discovered a video.
The video had been recorded by the woman herself. She introduced herself as Gabriela Peréz, a former nurse at the Alkali Research Facility.
Officially, Alkali claimed to be working on genetic engineering to cure cancer and other diseases. In reality, it was a nightmare factory of human experimentation.
Their subjects weren't ordinary people—they were mutants. Mutants that had supposedly been wiped out years ago.
Zander Rice had orchestrated a "merciful extinction" of mutants years ago, but neither he nor the U.S. government ever abandoned their research.
They feared mutants. Feared their powers. Feared their potential. And yet they coveted it.
So Alkali was born—built on years of DNA samples and research. Its goal: to mass-produce controllable mutants. Living weapons.
In a way, it wasn't so different from the Sentinel program. One used robotics and materials science. The other used genes and biology.
At Alkali, they used artificial wombs and surrogate mothers to breed mutant children, all trained from birth to kill. No question about it—Laura was one of them.
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