Chapter 205 – The Egg
Logan woke choking on slime.
For a heartbeat, he thought he'd drowned in some nightmare swamp, lungs full of rot and muck. His eyes snapped open, but the world was dark — no, covered, but it's not a problem thanks to his night vision. Sticky threads clung to his face, sealing his nose, his mouth. Instinct overrode confusion. He flexed his arms, tried to move, but his muscles hit resistance — thick, sinewy strands, clinging like spider silk soaked in tar.
A growl tore from his throat, muffled and wet. Enough of this.
SNIKT.
Adamantium claws slid free with their familiar weight, slicing arcs of light into the suffocating dark. The resistance gave way with a wet rip, warm fluids splashing over his skin. He didn't stop. A savage thrust of his arm split something harder — a shell wall, cracking open under the force.
Light burned into his eyes. Not sunlight, not warm or comforting. It was sickly, green-yellow, spilling from veins in the walls around him. The first breath he dragged into his chest carried rot and iron, like a butcher's shop left to spoil.
Logan staggered forward, dripping slime. Behind him, the "egg" sagged open, its meat-colored shell collapsing. The realization hit him: I was inside that thing. They had me packed like some piece of meat.
"Son of a—" He bent forward, coughing, spitting strings of slime onto the floor. His head pounded like he'd drunk half a distillery and woken up without the dignity of a hangover. His vision wavered, then steadied. His body already knitting, forcing itself past the daze.
He blinked, sniffed the air. Focus, Logan. Where are the others?
Storm. Cyclops. Nightcrawler. Kitty. Their scents flickered faintly in the air — not strong, not natural. But something deeper remained. Soul scent. That strange thread he'd followed before. It curled out there in the dark, waiting to be tracked.
But one scent was missing. Lilandra. Nothing.
Either they didn't bring her… or she's already dead.
The thought rolled through his head like a stone. He clenched his jaw, shook the ache out of his skull. "Not the time for pity, bub. Just move."
His boots squelched on the floor as he pushed forward. The corridor stretched out, walls pulsating with a faint rhythm, like the whole place was alive, breathing. Logan's lip curled. He'd seen a lot of hellholes in his time, but this one? It was worse because he could feel it inside him.
Every step, his chest tightened, like some bastard hand had wrapped around his heart. He stopped, pressed a hand against his ribs. The pain flared sharp and hot, then faded back to a dull throb.
He snarled low. "What the hell did those bugs do to me?"
Ignoring it didn't make it vanish, but ignoring pain was something Logan was a pro at. He slipped into Tiger Stealth, his body lowering, movements flowing quiet and smooth. For a moment, a heat flared inside him — not the usual sting of stealth, but something else. Something… foreign. A smell, faint and acrid, rising from himself.
He froze.
He sniffed his own skin. Not blood. Not the healing burn. Something new. Something wrong.
His claws flexed involuntarily, the urge to cut whatever it was out of him strong as fire. But he forced a breath. "Not now. One mess at a time."
He pushed on.
The soul-scents pulled him through winding corridors. Ahead, the wet shuffle of movement. A patrol. Three Brood, their insectoid limbs clattering against the floor.
Logan's lips peeled back in a grin. "Time to dance."
He slid into the shadows, a predator among predators. His claws whispered out, not a sound beyond the faint scrape of metal on slime. He lunged — a blur of motion. One head split in two before its mandibles could even twitch. The second gurgled as a claw tore through its chest. The third managed a hiss before Logan clamped a hand over its mouth, dragging it back into the dark, claws punching through its throat with a wet crunch.
They fell silent.
Logan crouched, scanning the corridor. No alarms. No echo of alert. Just the wet drip of ichor painting the floor. He wiped his claws on one of their twitching carcasses.
"Sloppy babysitters. This 'galactic empire' don't teach their bugs manners."
He moved on, following the faint soul-scent deeper. His head throbbed harder with each step, like the deeper he went, the worse whatever was inside him pulled.
Another patrol. This one four strong. He dispatched them fast, efficient — throat slashes, spinal stabs. But as the last one fell, a sudden spike of agony shot through his chest. Logan dropped to a knee, a hand clutching his heart.
"Ghh—" His teeth bared, breath hissing through them. "What— what the hell—"
It felt like something moved inside him. Not pain from a wound. A writhing, crawling motion. His heart squeezed under it, like it was being gripped.
He forced himself silent, biting down hard on the inside of his cheek. His claws punctured the floor as he braced, the metal gouging deep. The smell of his own blood flooded his nose.
The pain eased. He staggered to his feet, chest heaving.
"They put somethin' in me," he whispered, low and harsh. "Inside me."
He pushed forward, but every breath now carried that crawling awareness. Something alive. Feeding.
By the time he struck down the third patrol, his patience was gone. He left one alive — pinned to the wall by a claw through its arm, its mandibles clicking in panic.
Logan leaned in, eyes blazing. "What the hell did you slimeballs do to me?"
The creature hissed, tried to bite. He twisted his claw, earning a screech. "Talk, or I make you a smear."
Its voice rattled, buzzing and cruel. "Host. You are… host. All of you. To the Queen's children. The X-Men… her brood."
Logan froze.
For a heartbeat, the hive's stink disappeared, the walls, the slime, the eggs. All that existed was that word echoing in his skull: Host.
His face darkened. His grip tightened. Then, without another word, he slammed the Brood's head into the wall with enough force to pulp it. The body sagged, twitching, then fell still.
Breath heavy, chest aching, Logan stood there in the silence.
"Calm down," he muttered to himself. "You been to hell before. You walked back. Ain't no bug gonna keep you."
He shoved into a shadowed alcove, bracing his back against the wall. His claws flexed in and out, restless. His chest burned, every beat of his heart echoing wrong. He knew what he had to do.
His gaze caught a slick reflection in the wall's surface. He saw himself — and something moving beneath the skin of his chest.
His lip curled into a snarl.
"All right, bub. Time to see what you've been feedin' on."