Winter House wasn't just a casino. Money wasn't currency here; it was oxygen. Wealthy men in bespoke suits sweated through their collars, pulled by the insane gravitational gravity of the tables. Winners screamed. Losers sat in hollow silence. Everyone sank deeper into the golden cage until their last chip disappeared.
A man stepped through the gilded entrance. He had distinctly Caucasian features mixed with Japanese heritage, and dark yakuza ink peeked out from the cuffs of his tailored shirt. He stopped just inside the doors. He inhaled slowly. The casino's air conditioning carried the faint, metallic tang of rust and old blood today.
"What's his angle?" a security guard muttered to the lobby receptionist.
"No idea," she whispered back. "He's been here for three days."
The floor staff watched him nervously. For three days, he had walked the floor, surveying the security layouts and the exits. He hadn't placed a single bet. He just watched. The guards gripped their stun guns tighter as he walked past, tracking the heavy muscle shifting under his shirt.
Tonight was different. He didn't walk the perimeter. He walked straight to the cage, unzipped a leather duffel bag, and dumped a massive stack of hundred-dollar bills onto the counter.
"Chips," he said.
He smiled. His canines were sharp, almost predatory.
The receptionist's hands shook. She rapidly counted the stacks and pushed a heavy rack of high-denomination chips across the marble counter.
He grabbed them and walked to a high-limit blackjack table. He sat down. He tapped his fingertips against the green felt, waiting. His hearing extended outward, acting as an invisible net over the casino floor.
A voice crackled in his concealed earpiece. "Calm down. Now is not the time to hit Weapon X."
"Do not kill Weapon X," the voice repeated, reinforcing the strict operational directive.
The man's jaw clenched. He hated that name. James Howlett was a ghost who had forgotten his own past, and these mercenaries treated him like property.
He bet heavy. The dealer flipped the cards. He busted.
He didn't care. He pushed another stack of chips forward. He filtered out the chaotic noise of the slot machines and the roulette wheels. He tracked a familiar scent. Logan was moving. Logan walked into the back office. The man isolated the sound of five distinct heartbeats inside that room. Four of them were unfamiliar. They weren't a threat. It was time.
A hostess in a sleek cocktail dress approached his table. Her red lips parted in a practiced smile. She offered him a glass of red wine.
He wrapped a heavy arm around her waist. He smiled back, took the glass, and downed the wine in a single swallow.
"We are in position," the earpiece crackled. "Execute."
He let go of the glass.
BOOM.
A massive explosion ripped through the front of the casino. The shockwave shattered the twenty-meter crystal chandelier overhead. Plaster and flaming debris rained down on the velvet carpets. Panic erupted.
Three figures stepped through the smoke and fire.
The first wore a red and black tactical suit. Twin katanas slid from the sheaths on his back. Wade Wilson. Deadpool skipped over a burning roulette table, his blades flashing in the strobe of the emergency lights.
"Winter House Grand Sale!" Deadpool shouted over the screaming crowd. "Third prize: your head!"
He swung his sword, severing a mercenary guard's neck.
"Second prize: a leg!" Deadpool cheered. "First prize: an arm!"
Behind him stepped a massive, blond man in red armor. Arkady Rossovich. Omega Red. Thick carbonadium tentacles slithered from his forearms. They impaled fleeing guards and gamblers with terrifying, silent efficiency. He moved toward the office corridor like a machine. He didn't speak.
The third man dropped from the ceiling. He landed heavily on a mangled corpse. Victor Creed. Sabretooth.
He wore a yellow fur coat already matted with fresh blood. His overgrown black fingernails flexed.
A surviving gambler scrambled backward across the carpet, terrified. He stared at the almond-shaped black patches on Deadpool's mask, then at the dismembered bodies surrounding the team.
Deadpool sheathed a sword. He dropped to a knee and wrapped his arms around the trembling man in a warm hug.
"You survived!" Deadpool yelled joyfully. "Go! Run!"
The gambler sobbed. He scrambled to his feet and sprinted toward the blown-out lobby wall.
Sabretooth lunged. His claws carved through the fleeing man's throat in a spray of crimson.
Deadpool dropped to his knees. He clutched his masked head. "No! Victor! Why are you so cruel!" he wailed in genuine, theatrical distress.
The mixed-race man watched the slaughter from the high-limit tables. He smiled. He reached out and grabbed the hostess by the back of her neck. With a sickening snikt, sharp metal erupted from his flesh. He drove the claws straight through the woman's skull. He let her crumpled body hit the carpet.
He sprinted toward the back office. He vaulted a craps table. He launched himself at the reinforced glass of Logan's door.
The window shattered in a shower of safety glass. He landed in a crouch. He spread his arms wide.
Six adamantium claws gleamed in the dim light. Two extended from the back of each hand. One emerged from the underside of each wrist. It was a deliberate, violent assertion of his difference from his father.
"I want you to know my name before I—" Daken roared.
He didn't finish the sentence.
Four other people stood in the office with Logan. A massive, blue-furred beast. A teenager in a red-and-blue Spider-Man suit. A girl in black tactical gear with her face mask pulled up. And a man in a trench coat, his hand already pressed to the side of his ruby-quartz glasses.
Scott Summers pressed the trigger.
A concussive beam of solid red kinetic force slammed into Daken's chest. The impact launched him backward. He flew back out the shattered window and crashed onto the casino floor.
Scott lowered his hand. He turned to Logan.
"It seems you don't need to go looking for your Weapon X friends after all," Scott said. "They came to you."
PS: Daken Akihiro was born to Logan and his Japanese wife, Itsu, but he was believed to have died when the Winter Soldier murdered his pregnant mother. Surviving due to his inherited healing factor, he was recovered and raised by handlers who groomed him into a Weapon X operative specifically designed to destroy his father. His physiology reflects this vendetta through a unique claw configuration: while Logan has three claws per knuckle, Daken has two on the back of his hand and one emerging from his wrist, a constant anatomical assertion of his own identity. Beyond his blades, he possesses the ability to manipulate pheromones.