"So I really drove all the way into Canada?"
Fenris's expression froze instantly. He stood there watching the passerby walk away, looking completely lost.
"At this point... might as well eat first."
With a long sigh, Fenris could only accept reality.
After refueling with two large cans of gas at the station and finally getting a hot meal for the first time in a while, he rubbed his stomach and headed to the bar the passerby had mentioned, the one where Wolverine the boxing champion was fighting.
"Champion! Champion!"
"Ladies and gentlemen! I've never seen anything like this! Are you really just going to let this guy walk away with all the money?"
The moment he pushed open the door, the waves of cheers nearly blew the roof off. Plenty of people were waving cash and screaming at the top of their lungs, while a fat host shouted himself hoarse into a microphone.
"A Black Swan."
Fenris walked up to the bar counter. The huge iron cage used for the fights was less than five meters away from him.
A tall, heavily built man with his shirt off was leaning lazily against the cage, taking small sips of whiskey.
Behind him, another man was sprawled limply on the ground, his face covered in blood, while two people dragged him out of the cage.
"Logan?"
Fenris studied the man inside the cage with curiosity.
A lot of people in this world looked very different from how he remembered them, but a few extremely distinctive traits still remained the same.
Like Logan's unmistakable wild, mane-like hairstyle.
At this point, Logan had already been injected with Adamantium, but because of one of Stryker's bullets, he had lost his memory.
Logan's wife, Silver Fox, the White Queen's sister, possessed psychic hypnosis abilities.
The two of them had once fought Stryker together, and Silver Fox had died because of it.
The woman he had once loved intimately and protected with everything he had - after losing his memory, Logan could only stare blankly at her strangely familiar face, unable to understand why it made him so sad.
By now, Logan had been wandering alone for more than ten years.
"What a miserable hundred-year-old man..."
Perhaps sensing the pity in Fenris's gaze, Logan's eyes swept coldly toward him the very next moment.
Instinctively, Fenris's pupils widened, the corners of his eyes drawing taut, the skin around his sockets shifting slightly as he met Logan's stare head-on.
The instant their eyes met, Logan's beastlike instincts caught a whiff of danger from Fenris.
"Mutant brat."
Watching Fenris raise his glass to him from afar, Logan curled his lip in disdain and turned away. Even so, the hand holding the bottle still honestly lifted behind him in acknowledgment.
"Heh."
Fenris grinned, drained his drink in one go, and tossed down a bill, ready to leave. But just as he turned, the corner of his eye caught sight of a girl in a black hood entering through the door.
"Rogue?"
Looking at the girl, wrapped up from head to toe and carefully avoiding the crowd, a spark flashed through Fenris's mind and a name immediately surfaced.
By making physical contact, she could temporarily use another person's mutant ability and could even absorb their life force.
In the X-Men storyline, Magneto had used Rogue's power atop the Statue of Liberty in an attempt to turn all of humanity into mutants.
It really was classic Erik. No matter what else could be said about his plans, the spectacle was never lacking.
"This has nothing to do with me. I'd better get out of here."
...
A little while later.
Fenris went on a major shopping spree through town, buying daily supplies and also picking up an extremely detailed map.
"Why are the markings on this map so weird? They don't match the surrounding terrain at all..."
Fenris frowned and compared it for quite a while. Eventually, he hesitantly picked a direction and set off.
"Whatever. I'll just go and see."
Vroom!
The engine roared as Fenris plunged headfirst into the night.
Not long after Fenris left, a pickup camper drove out of town right behind him.
As time passed and dawn gradually brightened the sky, Fenris frowned and glanced into the rearview mirror.
A pickup had been following him the entire night.
No matter whether he sped up to pull away or slowed down to let it pass, the truck stubbornly stayed on his tail like a ghost.
"What, did they take a liking to my car? Or to me?"
Fenris could not make sense of it, so he finally slammed on the brakes and skidded his SUV sideways across the road.
"Hey!"
Just as Fenris was about to get out, the pickup stopped first.
A broad-shouldered, powerfully built man stepped out of it. A thick cigar hung from his mouth, and he rested both hands on the door, watching Fenris with obvious amusement.
"You?"
Fenris blinked, then asked, "Why aren't you back at the bar boxing? Why have you been tailing me all this time?"
"Once they found out I was a mutant, they kicked me out."
Logan blew out a long stream of smoke and smacked his lips in mild annoyance. "You're a mutant too, and you're on your own. So where exactly are you headed?"
"You want to come with me?" Fenris frowned.
"As if I'd want to follow you."
Logan looked utterly scornful, clearly dismissing Fenris's words. "I just saw your plates were from New York State, so I came to tell you something. If you're trying to go home, you're headed the wrong way."
"This road may be the main one, but it loops ahead and takes you farther north into Canada. America's south."
After saying that, Logan casually flicked away his finished cigar, turned, climbed back into his truck, and tapped the horn. "Move your car."
"Oh. Oh, right."
Watching Fenris stare at him in disbelief before hurriedly scrambling to move the SUV, Logan bared his teeth in a grin.
"How did you know he was going the wrong way?"
Rogue, sitting in the passenger seat, asked curiously.
"The locals said so." Logan lit another cigar and took a deep drag. "Someone saw him heading the wrong way."
"The terrain around here is complicated, and there aren't many signs. Even with a map, people who don't know the area can get lost or take the wrong road pretty easily."
"Then why didn't you tell him earlier?" Rogue asked again. "He's already driven a long way through the night."
"Because I felt like it."
Remembering what had happened in the bar, Logan unexpectedly laughed.
Then, once Fenris finally cleared the road, Logan floored it. As he overtook him, he made sure to lean on the horn a few extra times in mockery.
"I hate living without navigation."
The honking gradually faded into the distance. Watching Logan's truck get farther and farther away, Fenris helplessly turned the wheel, preparing to head back the way he came.
Boom!
Along with the shriek of brakes, a huge explosion suddenly rang out, clear as day in Fenris's ears.
"Hm?"
Fenris whipped his head around. It had come from the direction Logan had gone.
"Serves you right for laughing at me. Bad luck hit you fast, huh?"
Fenris snorted and immediately spun the car around.
"Not like Wolverine's gonna die anyway..."
He muttered to himself as he drove off in the opposite direction.
"But would it really be a shame not to at least take a look at something like this?"
"..."
The SUV suddenly swung through a beautiful arc, pivoting in place in one crisp turn while the engine howled wildly.
"Well, I'm already here..."