Readers,

Greetings. It has been more than a few laps around the sun since I've put an update on here. Even though time has taken its toll on Wolverine Redemption, I always have been tickled by the traffic that the story generates, and any day that I got the notification of a new review or a story follower always brought a a smile to my face without fail. Unfortunately, this will probably be where the story ends, a cliffhanger that would make even the writers of the Sopranos balk. No, nothing bad has happened in the past several years since the last update. Quite the opposite, and I wanted to share it with you.

When I first started writing Wolverine Redemption in late 2009, I was quite a different man, and not an especially good one. I was a self-centered 20-something guy fresh out of college, stuck in a dead-end in a job that I absolutely loathed that paid dirt, barely making payments on my loans and debt, and hardly cared about anything past what girl I was gonna hook up with that weekend. I spent hours with friends who weren't friends raging endlessly about video game or book characters and who was the more hardcore gamer instead of taking that energy and using it constructively. I lived for myself, and absolutely lost in purpose or what I wanted to do with my life. Writing on here was, more or less, a way to escape that pathetic existence.

For my readers, you've probably noticed that a common theme in anything I published. Almost all of my main characters perpetually had the tragic past, bitter attitudes, a rather warped understanding on how love and relationships worked, and exceptionally cynical. Talk about a direct reflection. Then it happened. I woke up one afternoon on an ER bed after one too many sequential days of not eating, high stress, and zero sleep. That's when it hit me with all the subtlety of a freight train at max speed that things had to change. I was the a-hole in charge of my own destiny. Instead of being bitter at the world for a hole that I had quite efficiently dug myself down into, I had to get myself out of said hole and onto a different path.

I got out of my dead-end job, pushed myself through a second degree at school, got into an entirely new career field, stopped living for just myself, and began to both care again and love again instead of just lusting for a warm body and tits at night. Most importantly, I began to love myself again. As it would happen, the fairy tale just kept getting better.

I met my wife-to-be, also on Fanfic as Christina TM. No, we didn't meet through here! Eharmony gets that honor. I will say that we both were tickled to no end when we found out that we were both authors on here. Admittedly, the wine we had been drinking at the time made our respective stories even funnier as we read them to each other with tipsy accents. So yeah, met THE girl, put a ring on it, married her, and moved a couple thousand miles to take a job that paid three times of what I was doing before. Speaking of threes, that's a good description of what our family size will be this winter. I couldn't have imagined it would have turned out this well only 9 years ago when things were so bleak.

Unfortunately, with all of this newfound abundance of blessings, I can't say that I've had the same free time to continue writing as I did when I was single. That's too bad, because I really would have wanted to finish WR, but other priorities just come first and I can't give it the time that it requires anymore. That's not to say I don't pop in on FF and read now and again, I absolutely do! I'm also still diligent on replying to any PM's. I love keeping up with people so don't feel shy in that regard. To provide some closure for those of you who have remained followers, I will give you a quick summary of where I was hoping to take the story and how it would have ended.

In my story, I had no intention of John or Cortana surviving through the end. Both were to have died either in the events during or following the Trial of Annihilation against Clan Wolverine. The Clans love tampering with genetics, hence their development of the three warrior phenotypes: elementals, mechwarriors and aerotechs. Obviously, messing with extrauniversal DNA from the Flood would have been tempting beyond measure, but as us Halo fans know, probably wouldn't work out well (as it never does) resulting in a flood outbreak. Clan Wolverine would have neutralized the outbreak using nuclear weaponry to stop the Flood. Specifically, the nuclear destruction of the Snow Raven capital of Dehra Dun where the Flood was being researched. This fact would be covered up and history rewritten to all but Nicholas Kerensky and a couple of his closest advisers. The use of nuclear weapons, combined with the Clan's already unpopular position resulted in the Trial Of Annihilation as described in BT lore with just a few tweaks.

John and Meghan Buckler were to be hunted and ultimately cornered and butchered by Khan Carl Jorgensson of Clan Widowmaker, assault star in tow because a few hundred tons of assault mech is about what it takes to bring down a Spartan. However, that would not happen before the pair would have ventilated the skulls of all three of his starmates heads using prototype elemental battle armor suits. Both of their bodies were to be recovered afterwards by Wolf Khan Jerome Winston for study, and DNA samples from each secretly blended into the Wolf's breeding program. Notable individuals that would come from that combined bloodline of varying degrees included names such as Evantha Fetladral, Natasha Kerensky and Ulric Kerensky. All of them brilliant tacticians and warriors of great renown in their own time that seemed to possess incalculable luck. Coincidence? You decide.

Speaking of things that aren't coincidences, it wasn't a freak shot from Khan Carl Jorgensson's mech that killed Nicholas Kerensky. It was a deliberate shot triggered by a very much pissed off and vengeful Cortana. Don't mind her, she was just doing some mech body jumping despite knowing full well that she would be destroyed in the process when the Wolf warriors went berserk as a result of the ilKhan's death. It was enough for her to know that neither Kerensky or Jorgensson would leave that battlefield alive. It was also to save Jerome Winston in gratitude for him preserving the genetic legacy of her Spartan. He would later go on to lead the Clans in what would be known as the Golden Century and remains one of the most beloved ilKhan's in the Clans history. As for Clan Wolverine itself, a sizable portion would escape to undertake a third exodus, pass back through and around the Inner Sphere and would be known as the Minnesota Tribe, before disappearing into the Deep Periphery forever. This would occur more or less as BT canon states, without the ambiguity of the true identity of the Minnesota Tribe.

Anyhow, that's the story and the story of the story. I wanted to at least tie up loose ends, give an honest explanation and type out a few more lines on here again. Who knows, if someone wants to take over and flesh it out (or go in a totally different or even better direction) I'm OK with letting it go. I apologize for the many years of waiting, but I just couldn't give the story the attention it was due, but I hope that this cliffnotes version will at least bring some closure. I'm still on here, just not writing. Send a note, write a review, I promise I'll get back to you. Thanks, and God Bless.

-Outreach117