This is based in part on the comics circa 1993 when Birdy died and Creed lost control of his bloodlusts, setting up a trap for the X-Men so that he could get access to Xavier, as only a very strong telepath could control the pain brought on by his feral rages. As I found it rather skeevy for Creed's main proponent to be a teenager (Tabitha "Boomer" Smith in the comics), I decided to create a new character to explore his rehabilitation. I'm not dealing with Birdy's death or with Victor's son Graydon's death, it was more that I wanted to play with what happened if Victor Creed was altered as happened in the AXIS event in 2014.

Jean is not in this fic, I've reached ahead to pull on the Emma/Scott pairing (I don't care for Jean as a character, she's ... boring). Let's just say she's died for the last time and is off doing whatever. Y'know, before Marvel brings her back again (March 2018 edit: I fuckin' told you she'd be back FUCK YOU MARVEL).

It'll be set in modern day rather than the 1990s as the comics were. Holy cheese-fest otherwise (although in the current run of comics he's reverted to a bit of an antihero and he apparently likes cat memes so?).

Last thing: Victor Creed is about the closest you can get to a wild animal with sentience, which means his violent outbursts and memories are pretty graphic.

The first indication something was wrong when Rae arrived back at the mansion from visiting family was the sort of hushed feeling, like someone had died and they were afraid to speak for fear of upsetting the ghost. Everyone seemed to be on edge, jumping at the slightest things; Hank had nearly gone through the roof when she walked into the kitchen the moment she got back, looking for a jolt of caffeine in the form of Mountain Dew.

"What the hell is going on?" she asked, slinging her bag off of her shoulder to thump at her feet. "You look like a scared cat, fur notwithstanding."

Hank pressed a hand to his chest as if that would slow down his heart rate, his face slightly pink with embarrassment. "You startled me is all." He gave her a peck on the cheek. "How was your journey home, my little librarian?"

"Cold." Rae grinned. "I forget sometimes how to dress when I go back, since summers in Alaska are more like fall here in New York. I end up coming back here with warmer clothing than what I packed to go back." She knew he'd deflected the answer to her question but let it go, it was entirely possible he was just nervous from working on the Legacy Virus, a project that always put him on edge. "Did I miss anything fun while I was gone?"

Had she not known him well she wouldn't have noticed the tick in his jaw that had appeared when she asked. "Just the usual mutant hijinks, Tabitha nearly blew up the Danger Room again."

"Much like every day she's in there." There was a reason that girl's codename was Boom-Boom. "As long as she doesn't hurt my library I find I'm not too concerned." A huge yawn threatened to crack her jaw, her hand automatically coming up to cover her mouth. "Holy crap, my body's telling me it's still on Alaska Standard Time, just like it was telling me it was still on Eastern time when I got to Hoonah. Gonna have to stay up all night just to get things right."

"Hence the caffeine."

She saluted him with the distinctive yellow-green plastic bottle. "Indeed. I'm gonna get settled back in, do some laundry. See you around?"

Hank waved a furry paw. "But of course. Come drag me out of my lab for dinner, would you?"

"Definitely." Rae stooped to pick up her bag again and left the kitchen, noting once again the weird silence and trying to chalk it up to summer vacation. The kids who had families to visit were doing so and likely some of the adults had taken off, too; she knew Scott and Emma were off somewhere beachy, Storm was in Kenya doing the weather goddess thing, and Logan was off doing God only knew what. Rogue and Remy had to be out doing something otherwise their raised voices would be filling the hallways with laughter and curses.

Down a flight of stairs she came to the laundry room with its industrial-sized machines in a neat row, several of them humming along. Her bag was crammed full, the zipper sticking a bit when she tried to open it so that the items inside burst out like stuffing from a wounded teddy bear when she finally got it undone. As she'd told Hank she'd returned to the mansion with more clothing than she'd left with, all of which now needed to be washed, so she busied herself with the mundane task of sorting lights and darks, putting in detergent and fabric softener. The one good thing about having laundry facilities among friends was you didn't have to worry that complete strangers were going to steal your stuff (except for the occasional lost panties which got blamed on the sock monster).

The caffeine she'd drunk was having its intended effect, buoying her for long enough that she actually felt like heading down to the Danger Room for a quick session. She stopped off at her room to change into workout clothing, loose pants she'd chopped off at the knee, a tanktop under a battered Captain America T-shirt, and sneakers; were she going for a full-on session she'd have worn her X-Men uniform, but she wouldn't need that for kickboxing. With her hair already in its customary braid she was ready.

Remy and Rogue were just coming out of the Danger Room when she made her way into the bowels of the mansion. They were bickering as usual, sounding more and more like an old married couple every time she heard them; both were sweaty and Remy's trademark trenchcoat looked a little worse for wear. This time the argument was over Remy trying to protect Rogue during their simulation which was ridiculous, really, when one remembered that Rogue was nigh-invincible and could hit with the force of a Mack truck. Male chivalry, when it popped up, was extremely hard to fight past, and it was even worse when said chivalrous male was in love.

Thankfully they stopped sniping when they saw Rae. "How was home?" Rogue asked, her face lighting up when she saw her friend. They hugged briefly, Rae protected by Rogue's full-body uniform and gloves. "Did ya miss us?"

"Not the arguing," Rae replied, going on tiptoe to kiss Remy on the cheek. "And home was good, I went fishing with my uncle, hunting with my cousins and some friends, and then got dragged out to my grandma's place to help her get ready for the solstice." She smiled, remembering the preparations; for all her grandmother insisted she was a good Orthodox Christian, she clung to the old ways and pulled Rae after her. Both women felt very strongly about not losing their heritage.

"You should come up with me sometime, you two, it's really beautiful there."

The two Southerners shivered, giving each other pained looks. "It be too cold up there for th' likes o' us, chere," Remy replied. "How 'bout ya jus' take some pictures an' we'll look at 'em?"

Rae snorted. "Whatever, Cajun. Did you guys leave the Danger Room intact or am I gonna have to find someplace else to exhaust myself?" There was always the gym down the hall, if it came down to it.

The two of them exchanged glances, trying to be surreptitious about it and failing when it took more than a couple seconds.

"Okay, seriously, what the hell is going on?" She shared her glare equally between them, arms crossing over her chest. "I came home and startled Hank in the kitchen, I swear I thought he was going to leap up and catch himself on the ceiling beams. Sneaking up on him is almost as hard as sneaking up on Logan and he gave me some line to put me off. Now." Rae glared harder. "What. Is going. On?"

Another glance between them before Rogue sighed. "She's gonna find out sooner or later," she said to Remy.

The Cajun nodded, his eyes flaring a deeper red for a moment. "We had some, uh, excitement while you were gone."

"Nothing new there, half the time I go home and someone's trying to destroy downtown Manhattan. The way Hank reacted makes me think you've got something nasty locked up down here."

Rogue gave a nervous little laugh. "Ya ain't far off there, sugah. C'mon, easier just to show ya." She gestured for Rae to follow, Remy bringing up the rear of their little group. Rogue led them down the hallway towards the holding cells, tension keeping her back ramrod straight instead of her usual loose gait, and Rae quickly saw the reason for it.

At first she wasn't sure what she was looking at, just a large body with long, unruly blonde hair, the captive's arm covering his face where he lay on his back on the floor. Something niggled at the back of her mind, some familiarity that flared to fearful life when a low, warning growl came from the captive.

"You punks come t' gawk?" the low, angry voice said.

"Victor Creed?" Rae took an involuntary step backwards when the hulk of a man unfolded himself to sit up, dark feral eyes glaring at them. "We've got Victor Creed locked up in our basement? And none of you are dead yet?"

Creed chuckled, a wicked, deadly sound. "Not for lack o' tryin', frail. Care to step inside here so we can remedy that?"

"Shut up, chien," Remy replied.

"I'm more of a cat, I think."

Rogue turned her back on the prisoner with an exasperated huff. "Don't encourage 'im, Remy." She looked at Rae. "He killed a whole bunch o' people, worse 'n usual, an' one o' his ol' Team X buddies came along to ask for our help in catchin' him. Couldn't 'xactly say no, knowin' what might happen if'n we let him go loose."

Rae nodded. "Yeah, not like he hasn't already spilled enough blood." Some part of her wanted to look at the feral mutant that was staring at her, to meet his eyes; she knew he was doing it to get a reaction out of her and she hated that it was working. "How'd he end up here, though?"

The Southerners looked a bit sheepish. "He set up a trap for us in Japan an' we fell in," Rogue explained, "an' then he came here to see if Charles could help him. He said he needed a telepath to calm the bloodlust."

"So what, we're just gonna keep him here?"

"Xavier wants to rehabilitate him," Remy replied, his voice and body language clearly stating how he felt about that.

"Fat lot o' good that's gonna do with a guy who's been killin' longer 'n any of us has been alive," Rogue agreed. "But y'know how Charles, is, Remy. And y'know we all got the potential for darkness in us, waitin' for the right moment t' come out an' get us, twist us up into somethin' we never thought we'd be."

The Cajun looked away, knowing exactly what she was speaking of, the very thing that still put distance between he and the rest of the X-Men; his affiliation with Sinister and the Marauders that led to the slaughter of Morlocks was something he'd kept from his teammates for a very long time.

Rae was silent for a moment as she thought about it, putting pieces of the puzzle together. "Charles helped Logan get himself back together, helped him to work past the berserker rages and the bloodlust. If Logan hasn't entirely regained himself he's still made great strides towards maintaining his humanity."

"Only difference, frail," Creed answered for himself, "is that Logan wants t' be a man. Silly little Wolverine runnin' around like he ain't an animal."

"So there's nothing in you that wants to be better?" Rae took back the step she'd taken away, coming within a couple feet of the phased disruption forcefield keeping him in, necessary for keeping in a superhuman who could likely benchpress Volkswagens. His eyes followed her, never wavering. "You came here to get Xavier to help you."

He growled at her, baring long, sharp incisors.

Rae snorted. "I've seen Logan's teeth, sparky, yours don't impress me."

"I don't think ya should taunt 'im, sugah," Rogue said quietly. She touched Remy's arm. "We should get goin', I'm starvin' and I'm sure Rae'd like to get on with her workout."

"Will ya be okay here, petite?" he asked Rae, looking between her and Creed.

She nodded. "Yeah, sweetie, I'll be fine. You guys go on." She shooed them away, watching them go before her eyes drifted back to Creed's. "You didn't answer my question."

"I came here to kill him."

Her eyes went wide. "Um. What? How does that even make sense?"

He growled at her again, this time in frustration. "You gonna talk me to death, frail?" he asked, shifting so that he was lying down again. The cell he was in was sparse, with no bed, merely a pallet on the floor with some blankets and pillows. He was afforded a little privacy with a screen hiding the toilet but other than that the cell was bare, the same cold, hard silver material the rest of the sub-basement was made out of. "'Cause I ain't exactly interested."

"No wonder Logan thinks you're worthless."

Creed's mouth curved into a slow smile. "Oh, you don't think that," he practically purred. "I can smell the lie on ya, makes your scent go all sour. Y'don't think I'm beyond savin'."

Rae's eyes narrowed. She'd forgotten that he had the same enhanced sense of smell that Logan did, allowing them to act as lie detectors, and she didn't like that he could read her that way. "I've been known to be wrong before, Sabretooth, just because I believe in the intrinsic goodness in people doesn't mean you're a good person."

"You're right, but you still wanna believe." He chuckled. "It's kinda cute. Mostly pathetic, but kinda cute. All you girls are the same, y'see a bad boy and y'think you can turn him into a good boy, all they need is some lovin'. So whaddaya say, frail, wanna come in here and see if you're good enough to change me? Maybe a good fuck is all I need."

His words shouldn't have been so shocking, she knew what kind of man he was, knew the kinds of things he'd done and was fully capable of, but that didn't prepare her for hearing it first hand. "You wouldn't be able to get it up anyway, Creed. I'm not your type, I'm not bleeding out on the floor."

"You're my type, little one, you got a pulse an' everything. An' ya look a lot like one o' Logan's women I killed way back when, pretty squaw just like you."

The racial slur slid right on past in light of the rest of what he was saying. She knew she shouldn't be baiting him, shouldn't be trying to provoke a reaction out of him. Some part of her was testing to see if there really was something worth saving, something that could be redeemed so that he wouldn't need to be put down like a dog; that's what the outcome would be when Logan came back and discovered who they were housing. She cringed to think of that, of the bloodshed that would ensue.

With an angry, frustrated sigh, she turned on her heel and headed back down the hall to the Danger Room.

"Whatsamatter, frail?" he called after her. "You bothered knowin' I'm down here, thinkin' about killin' all your friends and family?"

The doors slid shut behind her and cut off anything else he may have said. Rae blew out a breath of relief and realized she was shaking from anger and fear, all reactions to both Creed's words and presence. She trusted that Xavier knew what he was doing, that the security measures in place would keep him there, but even with all the trust in the world it was terrifying to know that a self-proclaimed serial killer was lurking almost literally beneath your bed.

Her eyes closed as she came to a stop near the center of the room, drawing breath in through her nose and out through her mouth, just like Logan had taught her. She forced herself to concentrate on that physical act, counting the seconds between breaths, her heart slowing down with each passing moment until she opened her eyes and found she wasn't shaking anymore.

"Computer," she called out, "initiate program Logan gamma, level two, safety on. Add in Raina mix, track two." After years of watching Star Trek she still half-expected a response from a smooth female voice but here there was nothing, just compliance.

The Danger Room dissolved from its familiar silver curves to a small dojo. In the middle of the floor were mats designed to break falls, the floor around that bare, with various weapons and kanji scrolls decorating the walls; it was supposed to be a fair replica of a dojo Logan had studied in once upon a time, down to the cranky sensei who seemed to take delight in watching his students make fools of themselves. With her own sensei still a few days away from coming home (and in no condition to train with her anyway), she called up the first holopponent, bending to remove shoes and socks which she placed carefully aside before flopping down onto the floor to wrap her feet and hands with tape.

A few quick stretches later and she felt limber enough to bounce back up and take on her holopponent, a man her own size with proportionate skill, someone she couldn't beat or be defeated by easily. For a time she lost herself in the back and forth movement, hands and feet striking quickly, circling and weaving looking for openings, while music played over the system to help her find her rhythm. She'd always worked better with music in all aspects of her life, from schoolwork to cleaning to fighting, even on to more intimate things, each one having its own type of music.

Here it was that somewhat obnoxious genre of rap/rock that most people said they hated but secretly listened to on their ipods. Linkin Park predominated on her fight mix for its aggressive, fast words and music, lending itself to what she was currently doing.

The AI was excellent, responding perfectly to her attacks like a real person would, and the contact between bodies was just as realistic. Her fist took him in the jaw and rocked his head back, following up with a kick to the shoulder before she danced back, fists held up to protect her head from blows as he advanced on her. Just like fighting a real person she found she could watch the fighting style, find openings in his form and technique, then use those against him: he favored his left side, feinting to the right and attacking from the left to keep it protected.

When he aimed a left cross at her she grabbed his arm as it went past where her head had been, twisting it up behind him and bringing her knee up into his now-unprotected left side. He went down like a sack of bricks and stayed there, weirdly silent for what she'd just done to him, but he hadn't been programmed to that extent.

"Computer, remove level two holopponent, bring up level three. Advance Raina mix to track six." The Danger Room did its thing and suddenly she was facing a woman a little bigger than her, closer to Ororo in height and not all that dissimilar in coloring; she could have been the Windrider's twin save for the difference in hair and eye color. Rae wasted no time in attacking as Metallica's "Fuel" blasted over the sound system and she matched her speed with the fast pace of the song, suddenly feeling the need to be more aggressive. The holopponent reacted accordingly, giving as good as it got, landing almost twice as many blows as level two. One in particular, a kick that clipped her ear, made her see stars enough that she dropped to one knee on the mat, breathing hard and trying not to puke.

"Halt!" she shouted. The holopponent went still, freezing in mid-lunge while Rae gagged on hands and knees. She stumbled to her feet then out the door, across the hallway to the bathroom where she lost what she'd eaten for lunch; as a child she'd had many inner ear problems and now in adulthood, if she got hit the right way in the head, her equilibrium would be knocked off balance. Flying at high altitude for many hours likely hadn't helped any. It was never pleasant and frequently put her down for at least a day for recovery.

She ran cold water to rinse out her mouth before she went back and turned the dojo program off, grabbing her shoes and socks from the floor.

"Get your ass handed to ya?" came Creed's voice as she emerged again, still fighting the urge to gag. The room was doing a slow spin and as much as she didn't want to show weakness in front of him, the need to stop and lean against the wall was too strong. She pressed her forehead to the cool metal and prayed to melt into the floor.

"Aw, c'mon, frail. The least you could do is play the wounded gazelle over here where I can get the full effect."

"Shut your mouth, Victor." Hank's voice was angry coming to her rescue. "No one wants to hear what you have to say."

A low, chuckling growl carried down the hall. "Doesn't mean it don't affect the lot o' ya."

Hank ignored him and turned to Rae. "Are you alright?" he asked.

She waffled her hand back and forth in lieu of doing it with her head. "Took a kick to the head, it screwed me up a little." She winced and tried to pull away when he pulled a small penlight from his coat pocket and shined it in her eyes. "Geez, Hank, warn a girl first."

"Checking your pupils for concussion," he explained, making a pleased little "hmm" when he found the results favorable. "If you can make it to the elevator, we'll get you upstairs and in bed. I can give you something for the nausea."

"Sounds spiffy." She leaned on him, heavily, feet shuffling and refusing to move properly with her balance off-kilter. "Thanks," she said slowly.

Hank patted her hand on his arm. "Never a problem, my dear. I do wish you'd be a little more careful sometimes."

"Don't we both?" Speaking took too much effort so she remained silent as Hank got her upstairs, leaving her to undress while he went back down and got the promised medication. She'd crawled into bed by the time he returned and was asleep almost before he left the room again.

Her dreams were a muddle of strange things, but the running theme seemed to involve a monster in the closet.