“What the fuck were you thinking?”
Ororo cringed at the barely contained anger in Logan’s voice. She knew she had done wrong, not that she was going to admit to the jackass. She knew she should not have flirted with that trucker at the last bar they stopped at, the bar, which for all purposes was closed now, and would remain as such until the owner got rid of all the broken furniture, bottles and glasses and fixed the front door and the large gaping hole in the wall.
“You crazy or something woman?” Logan repeated ran a hand through his sweat and alcohol smelling hair, his face set in scowl, his other hand tightly wound around the steering wheel of his truck. “You could have got raped or something even worse? You know those asshole ain’t ever alone.”
“How was I to know?” Ororo pouted like a petulant child. Her own hair was growing back, and the previously bald patch was covered by a centimeter long growth of white silky softness. She had even managed to trim her longer hair to get a sort of semi crew cut look. She was still woefully thin, and the short hair coupled with the baggy clothes, Logan’s clothes she was wearing only made her look more like a man, except for her now cleared and refilling smooth facial features and her obvious chest.
----
“Who the fuck are you?”
Logan’s eyes widened at the first proper sentence from Ororo. ‘What happened?’ He thought in amazement. Bringing the truck to a screeching halt, he turned sideways to Ororo.
“You can talk?” He blurted out, getting a duh look from Ororo. Even her body language seemed to have changed after his second and her first lightening strike.
“Of course, genius,” Ororo replied sarcastically. However, any fight she might have had in her all went away the next moment, as in trying to sit up; she found that not only was she in intense pain, her brain seemed to have a train bumbling through it or a whole colony of bees or maybe both.
“Hey, take it easy,” Logan’s voice instantly dropped a couple of notches on the gruffness meter. Reaching forward to her shoulder he tried to get her to sit straight, only to have his hand smacked away. “What the…?”
“Keep your hands to yourself,” Ororo grunted, trying to mask her pain, not knowing that it wouldn’t have worked with Logan anyway, not when he could catch its smell coming off her.
“I ain’t gonna hurt you,” Logan drew back, bringing both his hands to the steering wheel so that she could see them.
“Yeah, well, anyway, keep your paws to…..” Ororo drew further back, stopping mid-sentence, as something seemed to dawn on her. “You’re him, aren’t you?”
“Who the fuck, him?” It was Logan’s turn to put on the annoyed face. Not only had the she fried his ass twice, twice, he killed people for even trying, she also practically accused him of kidnapping and trying to rape her. ‘Yeah, like that’s gonna happen,’ the Wolverine inside him chuckled at the thought. Even if this female’s base scent was good, pleasing, the rest of the package wasn’t up to the mark. Hell, he had thought her to be in her mid-teens when he first got her and although with a proper meal, rest and set of clothes, she looked older, but still not old enough to meet either his standard minimum age limit. That meant she looked younger than the legal drinking age in Canada, which is nineteen years. There was no way in hell that he was going to touch a kid. Even if she was an adult, which she wasn’t in his ‘drinking age limit’ eyes, she still fell under the sick-pervert section.
---
“You are the guy in my dream?” Ororo blurted out, biting her tongue at the way it came out.
“I am the guy of your dreams?” Logan inquired with mocking amusement.
“Not OF jackass, in, INNNAH,” she deliberated on the last word to make it clearer.
“What’s with you huh?” Logan was really getting, no, he WAS pissed off now. This is what he had saved, a loose mouthed, nagging, useless lump of a woman. “I saved your ass lady. If it weren’t for me, you’d be with your friends back at the base, getting yer guinea-piggin’ of the day.”
At the mention of the base and the experiments, tortures conducted there, Ororo flinched visibly, the light in her eyes sudden blinking off.
“Look, I didn’t mean it like that,” Logan caught onto her hesitation. He did not mean to scare her. It was just that…..fuck. “No one is going to get you. You are safe.”
Ororo answered by nodding her head. What neither of them noticed was how the weather seemed to have changed once again. “Thank you.”
“What?” Logan nearly didn’t catch that.
“I said, thank you,” the second time she spoke louder. “I remember some of it. It is almost as if it is in a dream, a nightmare or something. I remember you too, a little. I remember you giving me food to eat. I remember being somewhere dark and just wanting to get away.”
“We were in a cave,” Logan supplied the filler. “I took you there for safety.” ‘Yeah, and got lit up for it,’ a sarcastic voice spoke up from within him. “But you kinda ran away. Zapped me too.”
“I don’t like closed spa….what do you mean zapped you?”
“You used yer power on me,” Logan clarified.
“My power?”
“Yeah, yer mutant power.”
The eyes scrunching and widening with confusion, Ororo looked at her hands and then at Logan.
“What’s a mutant?”
----
A little while, at the bar,
“The lady said to leave her alone.” The young, blonde haired man looked up to see who had spoken those words to him.
He was the same man that Ororo had been talking to and initially feeling like his bed-prayers for the night were answers, his arousal soon changed to anger when on his debonair offering not only did the black bitch refused him, her eyes also turned white, something that told him instantly what she was, a mutie freak.
“There ain’t no lady here man,” a second man, who had joined the first to take care of the mutie slurred, the stench of too much whisky clear on his breath. “Only this monster. This mutie.”
“She’s a mutie huh,” Logan cracked his knuckles, giving hope to the two men and their third companion that he would join them in teaching this bitch a lesson. “Well, guess what…”
“What?”
“She’s still a woman,” Logan grunted his answer, his eyes going several shading darker as his hand rose to the familiar attack position. “And something else…..”
“What?” Ororo knew what was coming next. She knew why Logan had lifted his hands. He was going to let those metal blades of his out. He was going to kill those men.
“No,” her soft whisper reached Logan’s and no one’s ears, and he seemed to ignore it.
-SNIKT-
“She ain’t the only one here” The claws of his right hand out, Logan grabbed and pulled the stupefied trucker, lifting him a feet in the air.
“Now, how would ya feel if I do to ya what ya were going to do to her?” The man near about wetted his pants at the threatening growl.
---
“How about ya let him go?” A voice sounded over his shoulder, as Logan’s ears caught the familiar click of a gun, a hunter’s rifle being cocked. “An’ I promise ya to put ya out of yer misery too.”
“Drop it, Elmer Fudd,” Ororo stepped into the fray, albeit from a safe distance. She just wanted to get away from here. That’s was the main reason why she approached that stupid trucker in the first place. She and Logan had an argument and in her anger she mouthed off that, he could go and fall from the tallest mountain for all she cared, while Logan blasted off that the sooner that he got rid of her, the better. “Bullets won’t kill him. They’ll only make him grumpy,” she repeated from what Logan had told her.
‘I heal from everything,’ he had said. ‘Fire, poison, acid, drugs, stabbing, bullets, explosives, all of it. It fucks like hell, but in the end, I do it.’
‘Don’t you feel pain?’ She inquired curiously.
‘Hell yeah, I get it,’ Logan spoke without taking his eyes from the road. ‘An’ the healin’, itches like a bitch. But ya get used to it.’
‘Oh,’ was her only reply. She knew about the two times she had shocked him, and still there he was, acting and looking like as if nothing had happened.
“Stay there mutie,” the man holding the gun whipped it at her. “We’ll get to ya soon enough.”
That particular move proved to be the undoing for the man and for all his ‘brave’ companions.
“’Ro,” Logan growled as he mentally checked out the order in which he was going to take out the fuckers. “Say put.”
-SNIKT-
AHN!
THUD
SHANK
Four sounds, one, Logan flinging blondie away, his second set of claws coming out, two, blondie crying in pure terror, three, him hitting the wall, cracking it and falling to the floor and four, Admantium claws whipping through air and slicing through the metal of the rifle as if through paper.
All that and then a fifth sound, as the afore mentioned hunter found himself holding up three fingers of his left hand, the thumb and index finger lying bloodied on the floor.
“AHHHHHH!!” His cry snapped the other ‘fighters’ into attack, each of them proceeding to get their asses handed to them.
----
“Behind you,” Ororo cried out, just in time for a wooden chair totting old timer bring down his weapon on the back and head of the clawed mutie. However, all his bravado vanished like draft beer at a college fraternity soiree when instead of falling to the ground as he was supposed and expected to, Logan just stood there, tilting his head to look at the dumbstruck man.
“That the best you big-game fairies got?” And the second round of drunkard ass-whopping began.
“Don’t kill them Logan!” Ororo spoke from the sidelines, now really fearing for the very lives of the same idiots that were ready to do her in minutes ago. Even in her amnesiac state, the thought of taking someone’s life seemed wrong to her.
‘Huh, what the…’ Logan scowled, thinking that she had once again lost her head. “Why, you got a funnier idea?”
“Well, I-I….” Ororo hesitated, trying to find a proper answer. “I could try zapping them.”
Even after gaining some of her memories back, neither she nor Logan could confirm what her true powers were. All they knew was what Logan had seen and experienced. One, she seemed to shoot or get electric discharges from out of thin air and two, the cold weather didn’t seem to affect her…much. The true extent of her powers was still unknown Ororo.
“Yeah, and that won’t kill ‘em, right?” Logan grunted as he hefted one of his many attackers and threw him against towards the front entrance, knocking the door and a part of the surrounding wood clean away.
“Come on,” grabbing Ororo by her hand, he practically yanked her away towards the gaping hole, and towards his truck.
----
“Don’t EVER do that again,” Ororo listened quietly as Logan bellowed at her. Driving continuously for the last seven hours, they had managed to put a lot of distance between them and the bar. “What were you thinkin’?”
“I was thinking to get a ride,” she grunted, her head hanging low at her chest.
“A ride?” His surprise clear on his face, Logan yelled again. “What the fuck is this? A freakin’ pony cart? What do you another one for?”
“Because of you,” Ororo yelled back, tears appearing in her eyes, tears of anger, shame and regret. At the same time, lightening and thunder sounded in the distance.
“Me?” Logan exclaimed in surprise, mentally cursing the weather. It was winter. It was supposed to snow, not freakin’ rain. “What did I do?”
“You were the one who told me that the sooner you got rid of me, the better.”
‘Fuck.’ “Yeah, but…listen…..that,” Logan grabbed for words to explain himself. One the sudden tropical rain shower outside and two the one inside, what was he supposed to do.
Pulling onto the side of the road, he turned to Ororo.
“Listen lady,” he barked, cursing himself at the way Ororo flinched away from him. “Listen, Ororo,” he softened his tone, well, soft for him. “I…..I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Then how did you mean?” Ororo asked between sobs. Suddenly very tired, her feeling of despair only increased. Captured by people who treated her like an animal, most of her life forgotten to her, no possessions or IDs to know who she was, people ready to rape her or kill her for being different from them, lumped with a man who couldn’t wait to get rid of her, what else could go wrong to worsen this situation?
“I, uh, I mean,” Logan scratched the back of his neck trying to find the correct words to calm her. “I didn’t mean that you whore yerself out to….” ‘Wrong, wrong, wrong,’ he mentally slapped himself at Ororo’s worsening situation. “I didn’t mean you need to leave right now. It was that…I am…..I was…I was just angry ok,” he admitted finally. “I didn’t mean for you to actually leave.”
“No?” Ororo looked at him from the corner of her eyes, trying to gauge the truth behind his words.
“No,” Logan promptly shook his head in a no ma’am gesture. “You can….mmph.”
Anything that he might have wanted to say was lost as Ororo, showing an incredibly burst of energy and flexibility, literally climbed onto his and threw her arms around him to hug him tightly, her face nuzzled away in the crook of his neck.
“Thank you, thank you, oh, thank you….” She kept on repeating.
“Uh, its-its okay,” was all Logan could say, while his mind formed only one thought.
‘What have my gotten myself into?’
----
Elsewhere,
A solitary green and white clad figure sat atop a skyscraper, his silver colored hair blowing in the night wind, tears welling up in his eyes.
So alone, he felt so alone…..lonelier than he had ever been in the almost eighteen years of his existence. He hadn’t been this lonely when his father left for the first time, nor when his mother died all those years ago and neither when he was ostracized who he was….a mutant. Never.
Yet, here he was, cradling the only remainder of his father, a blue and red colored helmet and memories of the only other person who mattered in his life, his sister.
His name, Pietro Maximoff, also known as the mutant speedster, Quicksilver, son of Erik Lehnsherr, better known as Magneto, the Master of Magnetism and twin brother of Wanda Maximoff a.k.a. the Scarlet Witch.
--
About an hour ago,
“What if we’re wrong?” The flame haired Wanda stood near the roof’s edge, her arms crossed at her chest, both as a defensive posture and as poor attempt to guard from the chill in the air.
“We’re not,” her brother, Pietro answered with a mixture of anger and sorrow. Their had finally received confirmation of their father’s death while in trying to rescue him from the clutches of the government, all they got was his helmet, the only thing that could be salvaged from the rubble that had become his tomb. The sentinels, an experimental program of huge ‘mutant terrorist’ battling robots, had taken the ambushed and managed to down the might Magneto. Alone, they would not have stood a chance against him, given that by wielding his powers, he could just as easily reconfigure their circuitry and programming as he could lift a metal spoon. The unknown factor of the human special-op forces planted and exploded C4, plastic explosives to draw his attention, allowing the sentinels to make their move before Magneto brought down all of them.
“Humans don’t change,” continued Pietro. “They won’t change. You saw that.”
“Pietro…”
“We turned our backs on our father once and it killed him,” the silver haired teenager cursed himself. “We will never do it again.”
“But you hated him,” Wanda lifted an accusing finger at her brother. Truth was she wasn’t a big supporter of her father either. However, unlike Pietro whom Magneto tried like dirt most of the times, she got off easy.
“No. I love him,” in a flash Pietro had his sister’s hand in his. “And I….I love you.”
Time seemed to stand still as Wanda caught and absorbed the true meaning of what Pietro had just said to her.
“I…” she pulled her hand back, her bewildered mind not caring the way Pietro stumbled towards her. “I’m leaving.”
-----
“Wherever your path has taken you father….” Pietro spoke to himself, bringing his father’s helmet up to place on his head. “….I hope it is far from this land. And I pray you are in a better world.”
“A much better world.”
----
A few hours later,
“Is it done?” A deep male voice sounded from the window.
“Yes,” the female answered tightly, squelching down the pain and shame that filled her heart at what she had done.
“Good,” Erik Lehnsherr turned to face his daughter, his face expressionless as ever. To the government, his enemies, even to his own son, he was dead, killed in the sentinel attack on his last base. What none of them knew that the information about the location of that base was leaked by no other than by Magneto, himself. It was a tactical move to get a fresh start, one that would allow him to work under the radar, and away from the always spying ‘telepathic’ eyes of his old friend and now nemesis Charles Xavier himself.
“Fath…Magneto,” Wanda corrected herself. Although in private Magneto allowed her and only her to call him father, never her brother, this time she deliberately chose to use his formal name. “I have a question.”
“Why did I cut off Pietro?” Magneto supplied the question.
“Why did you abandon him?” Wanda corrected him, silently adding, and make me betray and abandon him too.
“For his own good,” Wanda’s eyebrows rose at her father’s revelation. “Pietro is too weak, too soft to be a good soldier and I don’t have any place for weaklings with me.”
‘You mean too caring towards you and me,’ Wanda wanted to correct him; instead she chose to remain silent. Her mind was still replaying the last few moments she had spent with her brother. He had looked so tired, so lost, so much in need of her, of her care, her support…..and what had she done? She left him alone. She betrayed him. She betrayed the only other man she trusted and cared for beside her father.
“If he is to work under me,” stressed Magneto, clearly avoiding saying besides or in my stead. “He will have to learn how to earn and command respect and not just demand it.”
“Magneto.”
----
The voice sounding over the intercom interrupted and effectively ended their talk.
“Yes Mystique,” Magneto responded back.
“The package is here and so is the courier.”
“Good,” Magneto’s lips curved in a humorless smile. “Bring them in.”
‘Who is it?’ Wanda thought, not voicing it to her father. She knew about a mutant named Forge that he was interested in, but Mystique hadn’t left to recruit him yet. So who was this new man.
The near silent whoosh of the door opening announced the entry of Mystique with a head to toe clad short statured man following her. In front of her, Mystique was pushing a heavy-duty trolley with a solid lump of metal lying on it.
“Welcome child,” Magneto walked towards the black clad teenager. “Are you ready?”
The response was just a simple nod of the head.
“Good,” Magneto lifted his hand and the aforementioned lump of metal rose in the air, its molecules seemingly breaking apart. “But first, why don’t we introduce ourselves. You already met Mystique,” another nod from the stranger. “And this,” Magneto gestured with his free hand towards Wanda. “This is the Scarlet Witch.” He did not mention the father-daughter relation that the two of them shared.
“And you are?” Wanda asked as she got a confirmatory nod herself. In response, the stranger pulled of his mask to reveal a female face.
“My name is none of your concern,” she spoke evenly. “Just what I am to do for you and what you are going to do for me.”
“And what is that?” Wanda questioned suspicion.
“I am going to find and kill Charles Xavier for you,” the girl answered coolly. “And you….”
-SHUCKK-
“Are going to help me kill the Wolverine.”
Note: This chapter borrows heavily from the Ultimate X-Men series.
Spoilers: Ultimate X-Men – issue #59 and Ultimate X-Men – Wizard ½.
Hope you liked it and submit your reviews!!
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