A/N: This is my FIRST real story and my first x-men fiction. I've never written more than two chapters but I adore this idea so much that I'm going to keep it going. This is set after the second X-Men as I have yet to see the third one so we'll just pretend the last stand never happened. Logan has once again gone to a life of fighting for money after leaving Xavier's school. And yes, Cat is a Non-Canon character, meaning that I made her up myself. If I am to upload any more stories after this they will probably be with the name Cat too; I love the name so much! I hope that I've shown Logan in a different light but you will understand why he's so protective of her when I write more. Please leave a review of what you think, because I won't write more unless I know if people like it... Duh! :D
Throwing a few empty glass bottles into the rubbish bin I heard a crash against metal as one of the guys in the cage got hammered. I'd gotten used to the sound by now and expected to hear the bell ringing as it always did. This time it was different. There was silence from the cage area for a longer time than I thought there would be. Until there was a sickening noise that made my heart stop for a moment. I turned slowly around to look at the cage, my fears correct. Mark, the three year champion of The Marine fighting club was crumbling, blood spilling out of his exposed chest, where three slices were visible. I knew that I'd heard the noise of metal on bone. Looking about his opponent I saw nothing, no knife, no weapon. Everyone else was as confused as I was.
"Someone call an ambulance." I shouted as I ran over to the cage, grabbing a cloth as I went. The door was opened for me and I climbed in, moving to Mark's side and trying to press the cloth to the slices. His eyes were staring up, cold and dead. It was too late. I looked up at the messy, dark-haired guy who stood behind me. "He's dead," I whispered; a warning to him. He had roughly twenty seconds before the crowd turned on him, looking for blood, not just to see the fight.
Wordlessly, he turned around and walked through the exit of the cage, his jaw set. Luckily nobody was paying attention to him, only to me and Mark. I stood up and looked around at Alex, the bar-tender who had come to help me with Mark. I slowly shook my head and a few of Mark's girls began crying and screaming. I left the cage and looked around for the guy who had fought him but he was gone. I breathed a sigh of relief. One dead person was enough for the night.
In the next few hours everyone cleared out, paramedics coming and going, cops asking questions. When three o'clock came I was glad to lock the doors and take a rest. I hadn't been close to Mark, fucked him once or twice but I couldn't remember ever sitting down to talk to him. All I knew was that he had a wife, several girl-friends and that every day of his life was spent in that cage.
Sitting on one of the stools near the back of the club, I closed my eyes, hoping to wake up after a second to find it was all a dream but at the back of my mind I knew that it wasn't. I was never good at dealing with death, even of people I'd never met, but to have someone die in my arms? That was a different story. I felt like I'd had too much to drink, like I'd just gotten off the dizziest fair-ground ride imaginable.
"Are you alright?" a whispering voice said from behind me. I jumped and spun around, staring at the guy who had killed Mark. I slowly nodded before getting up and walking to the till, "I guess you want your money. You did beat the best fighter here after all..." I stopped walking at looked over at him. He didn't look like the other guys who came here fighting. It wasn't that he wasn't buff, or even that he looked too good to fight; it was something beyond the surface that I couldn't quite put my finger on.
"I don't want money. I... wanted to thank you. You really saved my ass back there. I thought you were going to set the dogs on me or somethin'. Guess I was wrong." He was looking me over and I suddenly had the urge to change my clothes. I would usually have been in my uniform but had changed into my current outfit because of... well, the blood.
I pulled on my super-short black skirt, trying to lengthen it discreetly. With the skirt I was wearing thin, black tights, a white sport top with a pink and navy stripe over my breasts and a pair of black and silver stilettos. Not exactly something to write home about. I sighed and sat down on the closest stool, my eyes not leaving his, "How did you do it? Kill Mark I mean. You're a mutant, aren't you? We have rules against that you know. It's an unfair advantage." Something about him made me want to run and to get closer to him, all at the same time.
He walked closer to me, his eyes wondering me over, "You're not normal either. You were in Xavier's! I knew I'd seen you before. When you came into the cage... I knew it." My eyes must have looked blank because he frowned, his eyes doubting himself for a moment before he nodded, "Catherine... Catherine Syde! You were one of Rouge's friends. I called you Catherine when we met and you shouted at me... I remember how surprised I was..."
I stood up from my seat, walking backwards around the tables as I spoke, "I don't know who you are, or how you know my name, but I've never been to.... Xavier's, or whatever and I don't have any friends called Rouge.... Get out, right now, get out." Iwas still backing away,close to the wall now. Fear was rushing through me, although I wasn't too sure why. Maybe it was because Xavier sounded so familiar, or how she remembered his face from somewhere.
"Cat, please listen to me, my name is Logan. I can help." He soothed as he walked closer, his hand out, as if I were a real cat that he was wary about touching. For some odd reason, I didn't move, didn't jump as his hand met my shoulder. I knew what he was talking about, I remembered, all in the instant we touched.
