Shatterworld #1

They were back in the jeep, heading out into the great unknown. Slade had chosen a lesser-used, more round about route for this purpose, and it was blissfully quiet- neither of them much felt like beginning a conversation. Slade suspected something was the matter - normally, Deadpool's silence was something to be treasured and cherished, but his fidgeting and looks of guilt suggested he was wrestling with something - a moral quandary or something like it. But Slade, when given a gift horse, didn't pay attention to the mouth, just mounted on up and rode away, so was willing to enjoy the peace while it lasted.

The Alberta Wilderness was almost empty, they were the only people for miles as the jeep came to a stop far above Alkali Lake from the north, overlooking the glacier. Dominating the scene was the dam, a thousand feet high, three times that across, holding back a lake that stretched for miles. A huge generating station at its base told the reason for its existence, intended to provide an inexhaustible source of hydroelectric power. Of course, there were no towering pylons marching away downriver to carry all this energy to a hungry populace. What was generated here stayed here, to be used by the Alkali Lake Industrial Complex.

There was a fence blocking access to the crest of the dam, but it was no obstacle. The poles and links were so rusted and twisted by the fierce mountain weather that he simply stepped over. The two of them noticed an older sign than the first, barely held to the fence by a scrap of wire, informing intruders that this was a government installation, a military base, and top secret besides, and warning of the most dire consequences if anyone was of a mind to trespass.

Below the dam, the forest had been cleared for the better part of a mile to allow for the construction of the base. The layout of the complex was circular, like a defensive laager, and the scale was as impressive as the dam itself. This place had been built to last.

These faculties. How many times now had they been torn down? And how many times had they been built anew atop those ruins? Slade didn't know, nor did he much care to hazard a guess. It was many things, a prison, a laboratory. If h remembered correctly, it was officially listed as a document-processing center.

The whole base was covered with snow, drifts piled over doors and windows. What roads he saw were cracked and blistered, with weeds and flowers and the occasional small tree sprouting to reclaim the land that was rightfully theirs. Windows were mostly broken. No vehicles. No tracks in the snow.

Inside it was just as they both remembered. Long hallways and empty offices. They’d packed up the incidentals but left a fair amount of furniture, all of which had suffered from the assault of the elements, summer and winter. But the basic structure of the buildings—thick metal walls—was still sound. It was composed of a succession of strong points, compartments that could become individual fortresses all their own - the builders had known to be as worried about an assault from within as from without.

"I hate this #%&@ing place." It was the first thing Deadpool had said in hours.

Slade grunted affirmation, though his heart wasn't in it. Without this place, he didn't know who he'd be.

"Can't I just wait outside?"

"I suppose." Slade said with a shrug. "But if you do, you'll miss your surprise."

"You're trying to manipulate me. It won't work."

"No, actually." Slade replied with complete and transparent honesty. "I wanted to thank you for being a good sport about this, so I arranged you something nice. That way we'll both have something rewarding to do over the next few days."

"Our sorts of fun tend to be different."

"I'm aware of that."

"Well, fine. But this better be magnificent, that's all I say."

"Trust me."

"That doesn't sound like a good idea."

Slade chuckled. "Probably not."

"You've brought him back. As I knew you would." A figure in the dark whispered in a low, scratching voice.

"Who's this?" Deadpool asked, glancing around, looking for some sign of where the voice came from.

Slade shrugged, a muscle twitching under his missing eye. "Couldn't tell you."

"I am Romulus. And all that happens, happens to my designs." The figure that emerged from the shadows, one arm extended. He had shoulders seeming as wide as a barnbeam, his face was a square of granite with a few narrow lines carved into it at the eyes and the corners of his mouth, his tangled mane of hair was pulled back. Slade and Deadpool were both big men, but this made them look positively small in comparison.

"Give him to me." He stretched out his arm.

"Is this my surprise?" Deadpool said critically. "Because he's not doing a thing for me."

Slade closed his eye, and rubbed his temples with the tips of his fingers. He could feel a mounting headache coming on. "I don't need this crap." He said softly, then lowered his arms. "This is petty, even for Shaw. I'm going to go outside for a cigarette. Could you deal with this?"

Romulus blinked. "Are you talking to me?" He'd expected a little more attention.

Slade tilted his head a fraction. "Well obviously I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to my brother here." He growled. "When I'm talking to him, I'm talking to him. When I say 'shut the hell up', I'm talking to you."

"I thought you quit." Deadpool added helpfully.

"I'm not ready to give up on you yet." Slade replied.

"Cigarettes, I mean. I thought you quit smoking, because the writers don't want to give impressional readers the association of a strong, capable, physically attractive male smoking. Solving their problems with violence as the first and sole resort, that's okay, but smoking?" He folded his arms. "I don't know why they're so bothered. I mean, cancer's not that bad when you get to know it. Me and cancer, we've got an understanding. We're practically symbioses. But I'm the exception, not the rule."

"Well I guess it's time for a relapse then." Slade grumbled back, not sure what Deadpool was talking about, or what it had to do with his ex-wife's ultimatum after 'Nam. He'd just realised he didn't actually have any, having quit a long time ago. He doubted Wade had any either. That meant a drive back to civilisation. Well, so be it. "Because suddenly I don't think I can do without one. Be back in a minute. Handle this guy, will you." Without another word, Slade turned and walked away.

Deadpool sighed. That was harsh. Romulus opened his mouth to protest, either being dismissed, or the fact that Slade was taking the thing he wanted with him. "Don't take it personally, but he doesn't kill people without being paid, and he doesn't think you're worth his time." Deadpool told him, sounding positively friendly. "Or maybe he likes you. Kinda hard to tell with my brother, him not killing you can mean a lot of things." Deadpool paused. "Hell, him killing you can mean everything from nothing personal, to either he hates you or he secretly envies and respects you."

Romulus growled a little under his breath. This was not going how he had intended. "What your brother intends means less to me then the tears of widows." He snapped, walking closer with all the unconscious grace of a panther wading into a pool. He was huge, thin, and Deadpool found it a little disconcerting when he turned his empty, haunted gaze on him, and felt maybe he'd judged the man wrong. He'd come off as a bit of a loser, given his stupid outfit, but was starting to look like a very dangerous man to start any kind of $&!# with at all. "It is not him I require, he is like you, nothing but a genetic dead end, an abandoned alley on the long road to unlimited power."

"HEY! There's no call for that." He sniffed. "Words hurt, you know."

Romulus went on, as though he hadn't been interrupted." I want Wolverine. I need him for my designs. And if you do not get out of my way, I'll take him from you."

Deadpool sighed. "Look, I'm not your lawyer, and you're not my responsibility, but I'd advise against it. I really don't think that's in your best interest. I mean, well if it was up to me, sure, Wolverine's not worth the trouble, but Slade is taking this real personally because of the issues he won't admit he has. Obviously they're stretching that mystery out, to try to keep you reading, but you seem like an honest sort of guy, so I'll confide in you; I think he's afraid he's growing old, but he doesn't want to talk about it. With all the fantastic musicians passing away recently, it's all really made him think about his own mortality - since then he's been waiting for a chance like this. This is just an educated guess, he won't admit this to me either. We used to be so close, but that sort of thing happens, and he's never been the sort to talk about his feelings. Anyway, if I gave him to you, Slade'd hunt you down and do terrible things to you instead of to Wolverine."

Romulus' soft blue eyes fell on Deadpool. It gave the mercenary chills. "He could try."

Deadpool nodded vigourously. "Exactly. Trust me, you don't want to see Slade try and hurt you. Most people he doesn't bother with much effort, he just kills them. When he goes out of his way -" He said, entirely missing the point. Then he paused. There seemed to be a missing logical step here, somewhere. "Why do you want him, anyway?"

"You have no idea? No idea what it is you have?" He laughed. "Wolverine is the latest in a long line. A process as long as human civilisation. My eugenics campaign to create the ultimate warrior."

Deadpool actually laughed at that, rather hard. He laughed and laughed until he was afraid he was going to do himself damage. Then he laughed some more. He was laughing so hard he was a bit afraid he might lose control of his bodily functions. Part of him was worried that this was some kind of crazy strategy, to make him unable to fight. If that was the case, it was working. When he finally stopped, he took a deep breath, then collapsed laughing again, tears in his eyes. Finally, he got to his feet, and attempted to continue the conversation as though he hadn't interrupted it. "Then no offence, but you are a really poor excuse for an arms-dealer. Random genetic combinations have reliably and frequently created things significantly worse than he could ever be." Deadpool shook his head. "I don't know if you missed it, but my brother kicked his ass with some special forces training and a few out-dated enhancements- and he didn't need the enhancements. Hell, maybe you haven't seen Steve Rogers do his thing, but as it turns out, he's a prototype. And last time I checked, sharks haven't evolved for millions of years, because they're already perfect." He paused. "Or is that crocodiles? Maybe hippos?"

Romulus frowned. "I don't need to explain myself to you." He sounded petulant. Deadpool wasn't surprised. “This is my triumph. You are irrelevant.”

“Dude, six thousand people died here.” Deadpool pointed out. “Died slowly, and in terrible agony. So how about you show some respect.”

Romulus shrugged. "That seems besides the point."

"And furthermore, I'd like to get some %&#$ing sensitivity here as well. I'm mentally unwell, not a endless repository of stupid dadaist behavior and shallow references to cultural flotsam." He paused. "So wait, were me and Slade involved in this stupid plan of yours?"

"You were incidentals. Scraps I tossed the supervisors who funded my work. They thought me tamed, an instrument of their will, little guessing that it was I who directed all things."

"Yeah, well… your face is… smell funny." Was Deadpool's scathing repartee. Deciding to give the man a chance to recover from that verbal equivalent of a slam-dunk, he resumed his questioning. "So Dr. Killebrew, Dr. Cornelius, Ajax (that's probably been worked into canon by now), those guys all worked for you? How about all those other guys tangentially related? Nuke, Maverick, Kestrel, those dudes too?"

"There were a lot of failures."

"You don't say. So, Butler worked for you?”

“Are you trying to trip me up?”

“Oh, it’s obvious? Here, let me try again. How come nobody ever mentions you?"

"My place is in the shadows."

"Then you have an unfortunate taste in tailors. Drop the act. Why don't you tell me who you are really?"

"I am Romulus. Lord of the…"

"Not that crap, I mean who are you really. Seriously like anyone believes that. That's a backstory for a LARP character written by a fifteen year old boy who thinks it's going to impress the hottest girl in school because he saw her reading Lord of the Rings once, not a credible history for a real person." Deadpool replied, rolling his eyes. "There's no shame in being a big guy who hits people. Claiming you're a has-been who used to be really important is kinda sad. 'I couda been a contender - 'twas the summer of '69', all downhill from here', is that really how you want people to think about you? A guy who claims to have gone from founding one of the biggest and most powerful civilizations ever, arguably setting the course of western history - to chasing around after a mutant with claws and a good medical plan? Seriously, if you have to go on about your backstory to hide the fact you're living off the glory days, fine, but at least pick a more impressive goal. That's what most people do, and it works great for them. Some of them even get taken seriously."

"Believe what you will."

"Oh, I intend to. And I believe that you are trying to sell more crap then a dozen fertilizer salesmen." Deadpool responded brightly.

Romulus stepped forward, and flexed his fingers.

"Wait, wait. There's only so much space in the issue - why not use some of it to explain what you're actually doing!"

"Is it not obvious? There have always been mutants. While their population exploded after the detonation of the Atom Bomb, they have always existed as long as there have been people. The Meddling of the Celestial Host saw to that. But…"

"When people ask 'where did you come from', they usually don't want you to start with a variation of 'some say that the Creator spoke four words, and from that instant birthed the Nine Realms, others say that's revisionist history and the universe started long ago, brought about by the friendship of Stan 'The Man' Lee and Jack Kirby, who everyone else is imitating, but the concepts they borrowed from are still present.' It's overkill." Deadpool replied, rolling his eyes. "Get to the point - what are you doing here and now?"

Romulus didn't even try to follow that. "But in Wolverine, and his extended family, it has begun to stabilize. Not an X-factor precipitating a fresh roll of the genetic dice with every new birth, but genetic stability - a viable subspecies. Akin to the theories of Lamark."

"The French's off-model Darwin? Why does he keep coming up in conversation?"

"Maybe he was right afterall. Mutants are the future - but not all of them. Just the ones who develop in the right way. A healing factor, retardation of aging, heightened senses and physical fitness - all with no drawbacks…"

Deadpool could not believe how boring this explanation was. He almost wanted to shoot himself, just to make it stop. "Maybe, maybe not. All a bit out of my pay-grade. So, since he's been on a long leash as long as I've known him, I have to ask, what is your plan anyway? With Wolverine, I mean. Not generally, you've said enough now to give me a good idea that that's about as well thought out as your backstory."

"I need his progeny. I'll let him think he's escaped, find the perfect female carrier - my twin sister - and have her seduce him while I watch, and then - "

"Wait, why do you need to watch? Can't you just torrent Game of Thrones like everyone else?"

Romulus looked nonplussed. "I don't understand."

"Cultural references lost on you? What a surprise. What I am asking you is this - why do you need to watch Wolverine and your twin sister go at it?"

"Oh, I never said I had to."

Deadpool went very quiet and still for a moment. Then he sighed. "I guess that's my own fault. I knew asking couldn't go anywhere good, and yet I asked anyway. Alright, that's enough. I might not have any idea about your endgame, but I don't need to. Your plan stinks, and really so do you." Deadpool said, holding up a hand. "Forget it." Romulus had gotten lost in the blather, but was pretty sure he was being insulted. "What?"

"You're just so, painfully boring. I mean, I know you can't help that, but I feel boring, just from associating with you." He shook his head. Any alarm the figure may have caused was a distant memory. "I mean, here you are, with an absurd plan, hoping that a bit of shock value will hide the fact that you don't have any identity, that you're just throwing a tantrum to try to get Wolverine to notice you as though he's you're alcoholic father - another thing I had, and take it from me, you're better off cutting that tie first opportunity. But not you, because it's the only thing you have. You know, you being here is clearly the editors way of telling me something. I should listen to my brother sometimes. I'm standing here talking, when clearly I should be fighting."

The moment he finished talking, he came in low, but Romulus was ready for him, and this fight was not going the way either of them expected.

Deadpool had his swords out in a split second, but Romulus repelled Deadpool's twin strikes without apparent effort, his barbed hands moving with such speed that it was surely impossible. Romulus fought with precise grace, his every blow weighted and measured, his movements anticipating Deadpools on every level. Far too fast for the man to follow, Deadpool dropped his swords, useless in a grapple, and drew his gun, firing from the hip, but the brutish figure swayed aside as the shot was fired, swept his arm with an almost negligent movement and hacked the barrel in two before reversing the blow and hammering his elbow into Deadpool’s stomach. The heavy impact staggered the 'Merc with the Mouth', but Deadpool was used to pain, and took the opportunity to slash with a long bowie knife he was fortunate enough to be carrying. The blow cut the shoulder and the cheek, nearly reaching the eye. Romulus didn't so much as flinch, he slammed the same elbow into Deadpool's face and while he was reeling at the power behind the strike, took a step back to reorient himself. Romulus followed him, raising a single finger tipped with a claw that came to a single needle point, placed it almost gently against Deadpool's Adams apple, and punched the needle sharp point through his throat with all the effort of a shoemaker punching a hole in leather. The Merc with a Mouth crumpled, his eyes rolling up.

Deadpool figured that maybe his first impression had the right of it afterall, as his heeling factor made the blood clot and his flesh stitch itself back together. The man, really stupid plan, backstory, costume, and pretty much everything else notwithstanding, was a bad Mother-#%&@er.

As he got to his feet, the man raised a hand, but Deadpool held up his hands. "Wait. Wait just a second. Time out."

Unfortunately, the ancient laws of combat were not respected here. Romulus hit him while he was down, aiming a thunderous kick at Deadpool's unprotected ribs. They weren't up to this sort of treatment, and crumpled under the impact, and drove Deadpool right back to the ground. Groping around, Deadpool found the sword he'd dropped, caught it and thrust with his blade, but Romulus leaned away from the blow, the tip of the blade scraping a furrow in his chest, more of a scrape then a real cut.

It closed a moment later.

"Look, this is really an exercise in futility. We both heal."

"I made you. I can take you apart." Romulus replied mildly, with enough raw confidence that you could believe him.

If you were stupid.

"Yeah, so you say. I don't buy it anymore then anyone else. Even if you were somehow involved, though from the look of you I'd imagine any qualifications or diplomas you might have would be scrawled on a sheepskin…" Romulus managed to sink his claws into Deadpool's cheek and rip it clean off, sending Deadpool scrambling back.

It was a moment before Deadpool was fit to talk again - a moment that was amongst the worst in Deadpool's life, and hoped he'd never have to repeat. "… but the actual event has remained open-ended for a long time so as not to confuse my continuity too much - look at the unrelated characters my movie claimed were responsible! You coming in and taking credit for stuff that's just lying around isn't as thrilling as you seem to think." Deadpool sneered. "And anyway, I was made in the sixties. Well, chronologically, at least. Seriously, you know the first thing they probably tried to make ordinary humans develop superpowers? Make us take a literal gallon of LSD, and hope that somehow gave us the ability to cut guns in half with our minds." Deadpool scissored his legs and then flipped to his feet, shifting his grip on the sword minutely as he did. "Maybe it would have worked, I don't know, but what I want to say is that I've come a long way since then." He lunged. Romulus was ready for him.

The two of them moved in a graceful ballet of thrust, dodge, counterattack and parry. Romulus fought like Sabertooth and Wolverine, only more so: with a fury and unrelenting pressure, hardened by an eternity of experience, but this could be used against him to. Guys like that get set in his ways, slow to adapt to changing circumstances, easy to put one over. He was the perfect foil for Deadpool's careful skill and natural ability to improvise.

Deadpool got his swords back, rolled under a sweeping lunge more because it looked awesome then it was a sensible move, managed to cut into Romulus' torso, and only got a few bits of himself carved off in response. Getting his feet under himself, he jumbed, twisted and thrust down with his sword, directly into Romulus' collarbone.

"Ha! Did you see that? That was my impression of Achilies from Troy. Hugely under-rated movie."

"Is this all just a game to you?"

"A game? I know you take yourself way to seriously, I mean even my brother's got that kind of acerbic wit thing going for him, but you obviously have no idea what that word means. If this was a game, I would be having fun." Deadpool snarled. It wasn't enough to beat the guy. Now he was going to entirely humiliate him as well. "This is just tedious, like wiping my arse for hours after hours."

"What a charming mental image."

"Fine. It's come to this. First up, I want to apologise. Judging you by your appearance? Not cool." He stuck out his fist. "We cool?"

Instead of bumping it, Romulus paced toward him in a definitively predatory way, his fingers twitching as he did.

"I want to make it up to you. Maybe I can fix your image problems - the problems actually quite simple." Deadpool pulled out a pistol, and was privately grateful he'd taken the time to bring all his weapons. "You don't have the right kneecaps to be popular. Fortunately, you're about to get the chance to get some new ones." He shot Romulus in the leg. Romulus barely flinched the first time. Or the second. By the third he was limping. By the seventh he fell flat on his face. "Unfortunately, you can't buy new kneecaps. You have to order them. You can't just go around buying kneecaps." His non sequitur said, he drew his swords with a little flourish, then ran at Romulus as he pulled himself up. Romulus swung, but Deadpool flipped seven feet in the air, did a triple summersault, and as he sailed over Romulus's head struck with both his swords, catching him in the face and the shoulder. Most of Romulus got to his feet.

With a tumble that any gymnast in any olympic team would insist was impossible, Deadpool rolled beneath Romulus' outstretched claw, cutting him along the arm and thigh as he did, bounced of a wall to reverse his momentum and did it again, cutting his other leg. A moment later he was on his feet, attacking from every angle at once with both his swords.

Romulus fended him off at first, but was off-balance and staying that way, and Deadpool didn't give him a chance to straighten himself out, finally getting though his guard. Horribly, but expectedly, Romulus didn't die. He stood where he was, backed up against the laboratory wall, and blood ran down his chest in a steady stream. The sword had started in his shoulder, and ended up in his kidney, nearly bisecting him. Blood flew on the air, but still he didn't die. There was a series of faint popping sounds as the broken bones reknit themselves, and the wounds started to close, but Deadpool didn't wait around. He just started cutting as hard and fast as he could, lashing away like a carpet beater gone berserk. This continued at last until, panting asthmatically and trying to stand up straight, Deadpool backed off and looked for something to lean on. Romulus' twisted carcass, only held up by the constant impacts of the swords, hit the ground and lay still.

"I feel like I should say something smart." Deadpool admitted, when he got his breath back. "I mean, your the next best thing to dead - so my rapier wit would be wasted upon you, and to be honest this whole thing is just best forgotten." Deadpool said. "But I feel like if I say something slightly sociopathic, a quip to show how desensitised I am to bloody murder, then you're more likely to stay dead, and that's what's best for everyone." He paused again. "But you're so boring, I can't think of anything."

"You still going at it?" Slade asked, stepping in. He'd removed his mask and had a cigarette between his lips, but hadn't lit it yet. There was a petrol station a couple of miles back that was owned by a creepy old guy who issued vague warnings about keeping away from the 'old Buckner place', an isolated cabin in the woods, that was apparently site of some kind of 'gruesome massacre' twenty years ago or something - Slade wasn't really paying all that much attention. Slade, not having any particular desire to go in that direction, had agreed without argument, which had obviously perturbed the man significantly, who'd filled his jeep with enough gas to 'get where you're going, but getting back, that's your problem'. Slade had thanked him politely, which had made the man all the more disturbed, and he'd gone up to his room to dry-heave into the toilet bowl.

Deadpool rounded on him. "What the hell was that about?"

"I got a craving." Slade replied, indicating the packet to demonstrate. "Here, have a smoke."

"Are you kidding? Those things will kill you." Deadpool replied holding up his hands to ward his brother off. "You know what they got in them? All sorts of bad stuff." He finished lamely when Slade raised an eyebrow.

"Kill you? Really?" Slade replied, looking at him steadily.

"Fair enough. Fat chance of that. I'll have one or two." He stretched out his arm. "Don't think this makes up for you abandoning me."

Slade rolled his eye. "Please. You could have punched that losers clock in your sleep. You just needed a bit of space to work, and no way to make somebody elese do it for you."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Everything. Of course I could have killed him. Anybody could have killed that guy, I mean look at him." Slade shook his head in disgust. "Our half-brother could have killed him. I left you to do it because I'm sick and tired of your constant whining and griping, and hanging on the sidelines acting like you're better then this."

"I told you I didn't want this job!"

"When do you ever?" Slade retorted. "Now if you're done with all your complaining, could you maybe ask your head voices if they've seen my brother, and if they have, if he's ready to stop acting like a little brat, and kick some arse?"

Deadpool sighed, but straightened his shoulders. "You can be kind of a bastard, you know that?"

"It's called tough love. And if you want to get technical, we're both bastards." Slade replied.

"You know, it's not easy being your brother sometimes." Deadpool grumbled, following Slade into the compound. "So what are we looking for?"

"You'll know when you see it."

Slade paused, then removed a canister filled with White Phosphorous from his harness, and placed it next to Romulus' corpse as he stepped past him. He really didn't want to see that guy again anymore then Deadpool did.

"No wait, I got one!" Deadpool suddenly shouted as he shot the canister, figuring that was safer then touching it. "Got a light?"

It took Slade a moment to figure out what he meant, and shook his head. "That's what you went with? Weak."

"Hey, my sociopathic tendencies are sort of in remission." He paused. "What would you have said?"

"Something like 'I'm leaving, this place is dead anyway'."

"Wow. That's really good." Deadpool gave him a thumbs up. "I'm passing that off as my own material next time I have the opportunity."

"Be my guest."

"So what's my surprise?"

Slade sighed. "You're acting like a child."

"Come on. Tell me."

"She's waiting in the next room. See for yourself."

"…No."

Slade patted him on the back. "Go get something clean on. I'll get started on Wolverine."