A/N: This is my first attempt at an X-Men fic, though I have written others. I'm not totally up with the state of play, so this will have to be set slightly AU to excuse any mistakes :-)

As for the story... this was a weird idea that came into my head that I thought I could work with. If you think it's too weird even for words, let me know! Should I keep writing, or lay this particular ghost to rest now... (though can I leave him stranded like this?!)

Cheers,

Apteryx

DISCLAIMER: This piece of writing uses characters copyrighted by Marvel, without permission. This material is used for the purposes of non-profit entertainment, and is not intended to interfere with Marvel's right to use said characters for their own commercial goals.

***************************************************************************************

Chapter 1: A Broad in the City.

The bartender warily eyed the figure seated hunched at the bar, his large hat pulled low over his face obscuring his features - an hour ago, he had staggered in, gruffly ordered a large whisky and knocked it back, and when he had gone to put the bottle back on the shelf, the guy had demanded the bottle be left on the bar. He was about to protest when a hand had flicked a hundred dollar bill across the stained wood. Without comment, the bartender pocketed the bill and moved down to the other end of the bar - this guy seriously needed to be left alone.

However, after surreptitiously keeping an eye on him, watching the level in the bottle get steadily lower and lower, he decided he'd better do his duty and kick the guy out while he could still walk, perhaps. He approached and cleared his throat.

The figure slowly lifted his head to look steadily at him. That's when he got his first shock of the evening; the figure was a female.

She gave a small shrug. "Yeah?" she drawled.

He guessed she was from one of the mid-western states from her clothes, probably a ranch hand or some other outdoor occupation - she looked tough, as though she had seen a lot and been around a lot, and he could also see that at the moment she was extremely riled about something. He hoped it wasn't him.

It was then he'd got his second shock.

In the trade he was in, he'd seen a lot of drunks before; he could generally tell just how drunk someone was by looking at them. Now he would have expected, with the amount of liquor this guy had consumed in a short space of time, and especially now that the guy turned out to be a gal, that she would be very drunk.

But the shock was; she was absolutely stone-cold sober.

He cleared his throat again so he could speak.

"Uh, want another bottle?"

The woman gave an amused slight up-turn of the lip, as if she knew he had been about to say something else.

"Nah. I should be gone now." She swivelled slightly on the stool and her eyes darted over the rest of the small bar's clientele, who largely ignored her; she was no looker. A few months ago, she would have been squinting through a haze of smoke, now all she had to contend with was dim lighting. She grunted and slipped off her stool, wobbled for a moment, then made her way to the bar's entrance, her hand reaching inside her leather jacket as she walked.

The bartender watched her unsteady gait, and wondered if in fact he had misjudged and she was drunker than she appeared. But when she paused before the door and with a glance back at the bartender, jammed a cigar in her mouth, and lit it with a lighter produced from another pocket with practised ease, he started questioning his own judgement. Sending a cloud of pungent smoke into the bar, she smiled around the cigar gripped in her teeth, and quietly sauntered out the door.

The bartender stared at the door, then at the empty bottle of whisky.

Seemed like yet another interesting night in the making for New York City.

................................................

Logan stepped outside the bar into the dark night and cursed silently to himself. That was stupid thing to do, to decide to stop and have a drink when he was supposed to be on the trail of a certain mutant, though he thought wryly, he did have a genuine excuse. A stiff drink to help get over the shock he'd had. Or, perhaps more accurately he supposed - taking a long drag on his cigar before exhaling and glancing down - she'd had.

Logan growled under her breath and headed off in the direction she had last seen the mutant going, hoping to pick up his trail quickly. The less time he - she - had to spend in this form, the better.

...................................

Xavier had been distinctly worried about this particular mutant. With the rest of the X teams away on various missions, and he himself busy with other matters, he had asked this favour of Logan.

"...I can tell you were he is at the moment, but he may not be there when you arrive; he is running scared. Logan, you will have to be very careful and, uh, diplomatic approaching this young man. His mutation hasn't stabilised yet, which is one reason he's so frightened. The other is the nature of his mutation - he has the ability to alter the genetic make-up of a person, their DNA." Xavier paused and then continued, "Could you imagine what the Brotherhood would be able to do if they got hold of him? I fear the that they may already be aware of his presence. Oh, and you may have a little difficulty remembering his name..." He smiled. "...it's Charles."

So Logan, the big lunkhead that he was, had said 'Yeah, sure Chuck', and had ignored Xavier's warnings.

Finding the boy had been relatively easy; he hadn't moved far, and Logan could smell the fear that the kid had exuded, as strong to his senses as perfume would be to a normal person. Charles had been leaning in a corner in a store-front's alcove, the hood of his grey sweatshirt pulled over his head, keeping in the shadows and trying not to be noticed by any of the occasional passers-by at that time of the evening. Logan had approached him quietly, trying not to make him nervous.

"Hey, Bub..." he'd begun in what he thought was a reassuring tone. What the boy probably heard though, was a low growl coming from a squat menacing figure, silhouetted against the street lights. He had yelped and lifted up his head - Logan could see the panic glinting in his eyes - before throwing up his arm in a pitiful attempt to ward off any attack.

Logan had reached out to place his hand on the boy's arm, meaning to placate him, saying "It's OK kid, I ain't goin' ta..." when the boy grabbed at the hand on his arm.

There was an initial sudden flash of heat, then a sensation akin to hot and cold flushes, travelling up Logan's arm and spreading throughout his body. He hadn't been too worried by it to begin with - his healing ability could deal with most things, including flu viruses - but when he started feeling a pain that didn't diminish, and things moving around under his skin, he dropped the boy's arm and stared at his own in surprise.

A kick in the guts; that's what it felt like anyway. He doubled over as the pain became more intense. He was used to pain; he had thought he was an expert in pain; he and pain were old buddies. He had experienced virtually all the types of pain that could be inflicted on a human body, even those pains that people generally never recovered from, but this pain was different... he could swear his organs were travelling about his insides, his muscles and skin were tightening, loosening.

Vaguely he was aware of the young man dodging around his hunched over form and running off into the night, but he was too tightly curled around himself to care. Then the pain hit his bones, and the pain, and the memory of pain, became too much, and he blacked out.

It can't have been too much later that he recovered from his faint. His first thought, no, not even a thought, but his body's signal to his brain, was that he no longer hurt. Good, his mutant healing factor had worked. Logan stretched and stood up. Or at least tried to. He stumbled and fell over, having lost his balance.

"What th' f..?"

He tried again. It was as if his centre of gravity had changed or something. He stumbled about the dark alcove, trying to stay upright and walk normally. His sense of equilibrium reasserted itself quickly enough, but as he took another step, he realised that his pants were loose about his waist; something was different... something was... missing...

Logan stood shock still, as the blood ran from his face, leaving him pale, and feeling like he was about to faint again.

He had been changed.

That damned kid had touched him and changed him, changed his DNA.

"I'm a flamin' woman!" he exclaimed.

"Of course you are, sweetie, and a lovely little woman too," came a voice from behind him.

Logan whirled, reaching out to lean against the wall as he nearly lost his balance again, to see a man leering at him. He hadn't heard or smelt the man approach, he'd been so preoccupied with his own state. The man, a tall, hulking brute, came closer; it was very evident what his intent towards the small woman was. Logan was used to being towered over by other men, hell, most other women too, but being leered at like that? He growled softly under his breath, "I friggin' well don' need this..."

"What was that sweetie? Don't want to talk to me? Well, I want to talk to you..."

Logan crossed his arms as the man came to within less than a foot away, then quickly uncrossed his arms again in horror as they met with a couple of extra appendages. The would-be rapist mistook Logan's look for one of fear of him, and smiled.

"Why don't we relax? I won't hurt you sweetie, not if you co-operate..." He brought his hand up in front of Logan's face and with a small schik sound, revealed a switchblade.

"Get ya paw outta m'face if ya wan' ta keep it, bub," Logan said quietly, not at all intimidated by this threat.

Unfortunately for his assailant, he was not intimidated by Logan's threat either.

"Heh, heh, if that's the way you want it sweetie..." He drew the point of the blade down Logan's cheek, drawing blood. He was so caught up in his own little scenario, he hadn't noticed that his victim was surprisingly calm for someone being cut up. He also didn't notice the cut heal up within scant seconds.

Logan brought his own hand up, but not in defence.

"For that," he growled, narrowing his eyes, "you get cut too."

The man leaned in closer and laughed at the empty threat and empty hand. "Yeah?"

Snikt.

The man recoiled in terror at the nine-inch blades that had suddenly appeared out of the back of the woman's hand, narrowly missing his face.

"Yeah." Logan lashed out, meaning to slice the man's face in return, but unintentionally over-reached, and severed his nose as well.

"Aaaaargh!" The man dropped his knife and covered his face with his hands, stared at Logan in fear himself, as he started to stagger away, the blood dripping through his fingers.

"Oops." Logan shrugged and retracted his claws. "Ya lucky I ain't quite up t'scratch at the moment, else ya'd be missin' more'n ya nose..."

He dismissed the fleeing figure from his thoughts. He'd have to be careful for a while, until he learned to compensate for his new body. He reached up and rubbed his smooth chin. He'd been in heaps of unusual situations before, some supernatural, some just outright bizarre, but he couldn't off the top of his head remember one like this.

A broad.

Dammit, he needed a drink.

*****************************************

TBC