El Paso, Years ago:
A dusty road, a sunny sky. Ororo Munroe is riding on a shiny modern motorbike, followed by another biker, whose face is obscured by a helmet. The other biker demands Ororo give back the bike. Calling the other person “Yuri,” Ororo retorts that it isn’t Yuri’s bike. Technically, it still belongs to whatever rich jerk Ororo stole it from.
Yuri has been looking for a Mugmoni for months and Ororo wouldn’t have known how to hotwire that thing if Yuri hadn’t taught her. Ororo reminds her partner that she has already paid for her “education.” How much longer is she supposed to give Yuri ninety percent of what the chop shops pay her? For as long as she keeps poaching all the best wheels from Yuri’s turf, comes the reply. If she doesn’t like it, she can go back to Monaco. She can’t! Ororo replies, as they both have their bikes jump over a stretch of nothingness. For one thing, she is from Morocco!
Whatever, just go back there, Yuri tells her. Ororo refuses. Her family is dead and, if she ever sets foot in Marrakesh again, she will be as well. She tells Yuri she needs this place. The climate reminds her of home. Yuri tells her to buy a humidifier and move to Pittsburgh. Yuri continues that she has overstayed her welcome. Ororo replies that she learned English from old John Wayne Westerns. Yuri will have to do better than scare her with “this town ain’t big enough for the both of us “speeches.” It’s too late for speeches, Yuri replies and takes out a chain.
Yuri tries to hit Ororo with the chain, while they are still both moving at breakneck speed. Ororo warns Yuri. “You suck at riding slick roads.” Yuri has no idea what she is talking about. It is drier than a martini out there. The next moment raindrops begin to fall. Another moment and it is a torrential downpour. Yuri remarks that Ororo is just like Charlie Brown with her own black storm cloud following her wherever she goes. Ororo asks Yuri to stop it and pull over. Yuri has no intention of doing so. However, not having paid attention, Yuri has ended up on the wrong side and ends up being hit by a truck. Ororo is horrified.
Alberta, Canada today:
Outside a bar, a now shorthaired Ororo, sporting an elegant leather coat sees a bike just like the one she was riding that day. Rest in peace kid, she says quietly. A biker watches, asking if she wants to take her for a spin. She replies that the bike just brings back memories. Does she ride? She mostly flies those days. She adds that she is looking for a man. A friend. Scrappy little dude named Logan. He disappeared a few months ago and – a cry of pain comes from inside the building. Never mind. She found him, Ororo states.
Inside the barroom, Wolverine is holding man by the shirt and snarls that he can smell the blood all over the man. Now he wants to know who helped him kill that kid the night before. The man protests that they shot a monster … a sasquatch. He was a mutant, Logan snarls. A sixteen year old boy.
Another man trains a rifle on him and remarks that they put him out of his misery. He threatens to do the same to Logan. Drop it, Elmer Fudd, Ororo states. Bullets only make him grumpy. He turns the rifle on Storm, ordering her to get out. Logan tosses his victim away, shouting at Storm that he told her to stay put. He unsheathes his claws and in one fluid movement destroys the rifle, then kicks the man.
Ororo warns him of another man behind him. The man tosses a table at Logan’s head. Wolverine just gives him an annoyed look. That the best you big-game-fairies got? The other man jumps him and Ororo shouts at him not to kill them. She got a funnier idea? he inquires. She hasn’t much weather to play with in here, she retorts, Then open a window, he tells her and proceeds to do so by throwing one of the men through a window.
Thanks, she tells him, as her storm winds brutally sweep the men against the walls, knocking them out. Somebody’s been practicing, Logan grudgingly admits.
Ororo notifies him that she heard sirens on the way. He called the Mounties fifteen minutes ago, he retorts as they head outside. So he wasn’t going to kill those guys, Ororo asks. He hadn’t decided yet. Either way, someone would have to clean up his mess. He tells her to jetstream out of there. He’ll stay behind to deal with the law. That’s not gonna end well, Ororo jokes as she begins to put a strip of cloth around her fist.
He explains that the biker he hitched a ride with took off and there is no way that an air current can carry his metal bones back to the States. Smashing a car window, she tells him they are not riding the wind out of here. She begins to hotwire the car, remarking that this is the hunters’ truck. The cops would just impound it anyway… Since when did she know how to boost cars, Wolverine asks. Since she was eleven, Ororo retorts with a smile. Did he think he was the only X-Man with a past?
They are being watched by a person with a pair of binoculars. The person remarks that they have reacquired the target and asks for permission to engage. In a secret lab, a scientist forbids it. The rest of the team will be there in twenty minutes to help fight Wolverine. Deathstrike replies that he is breaking up; she cannot understand him. The woman smiles.
In the car, Ororo asks if this is why Logan left the X-Men, so he can wander the countryside like Shane, righting wrongs from town to town. Shane is crap, Logan replies. Any Western without Eastwood isn’t worth the film they wasted on. And it’s not like he goes looking for trouble. Then what is he looking for? she asks. Logan shows her a wedding ring.
After examining it, she asks if he is in love with a guy named James. James is him, he corrects her. He remembers nothing about his life but supposedly his wife gave him that ring. The Professor got it from the government guys at SHIELD. They got it from the military guys who turned him into what he is today. This is the only part of his history that Weapon X didn’t destroy.
Ororo offers to help him find his family. He declines. Too dangerous. Weapon X will be waiting for him. Colonel Wraith may be gone but there are still decommissioned soldiers floating around. He doesn’t want her to get mixed up in his old battles again. Is that really why he wants her to go or is he afraid she’ll tell his wife that they kissed? Ororo asks. “Stop!” he shouts at her. She apologizes. No, he tells her with a horrified face, STOP!
Before them, in the middle of the road stands a woman. Suddenly, her fingers extend into claws and she tears apart the car, which comes to a crashing halt. Long time no see she mockingly states.
Wolverine, who crawls out of the wreck, angrily asks if she is insane. He has never seen her before in his life. She wasn’t talking to him, she retorts, calling him a pathetic waste of adamantium. She was talking to her. She points at Ororo. “Yuri?” Storm asks, uncertain.
