Claws

by Dalek Prime

Marie Kanker never asked to be born a mutant, but when her family is kidnapped, she must use her father's gifts to rescue them. No matter how high the body count grows, she won't stop until either the ones who stole her family are dead or she is.

A/N: I don't own Ed, Edd N' Eddy or X-Men

Marie took a slow, calming breath as she stood several feet away from her destination. She had travel a hundred and fifty miles to reach this place, and she wasn't leaving until she got she came for. She had following the scent of the heavily armred convoy that had arrived in Peach Creek three days ago, which was filled with men carrying assault rifles and dressed in tactical body armor who had been sent to obtain her, but after the trailer park girl cut down twenty of their so-called 'best' men, they settled for the next best thing: her family.

The reason as to why these paramilitary troops had attacked Marie and ran off with her mother and sisters was the fact that she had recently discovered who, or better put, what she really was. It all started nearly two weeks ago, when she was in the middle of an argument with her elder sister, Lee, over who had lost the remote. As with most Kanker sister fights, the argument quickly escalated from shouting at one another to trading blows. After Lee threw first few devastating punches, the middle child's anger boiled over and she lunged at her elder sibling like a wild animal. It was at that moment of blind fury that the blue haired girl's life forever changed.

As she leapt at Lee, six, long, jagged claws made of bone erupted from the spaces in between the knuckles of Marie's hands. Still drunk off her own rage, she slashed madly at Lee. While Marie only managed to rip her older sister's shirt with her new appendages, the sight of few and confusion on Lee and May's faces was enough to snap the middle child back to reality. In a state of panic, Marie ran into the bathroom and attempted to rip the claws out of her hands, only to make the painful realization that the claws were a part of her body. Frightened and confused by their sister's sudden change, Lee and May quickly called up their mother, who, after making out that something was clearly wrong with her children, hurried home from work to find her middle child crying in bathroom with her new claws still out and surrounded by various knives, drills and saws that she had used to try to remove the bone blades from her body.

After an hour of trying to get her to calm down, the matriarch of the Kanker family brought her daughters together and proceeded to tell them a secret that she had prayed she would never have to tell them. The truth was that Marie biological farther wasn't a Plummer named Bubba, but a trucker named Logan. Marie's mother and Logan had spent the night together at a motel before the trucker had to move on, but in that one night, her mother discovered that the man she had spent the night with was in fact a mutant. It wouldn't be until years later that she would figure out that her one night stand was the X-Man known as Wolverine after seeing a story on the X-Men on the news. When Marie was born, her mother had hoped that her farther hadn't passed his mutant genes to her, and after years of never seeing any powers manifest, she felt it better that her daughter shouldn't know the truth.

Admittedly, Marie felt betrayed by her mother at first, but she eventually forgave her since she knew that she only wished to protect her from the outside world. As it was evident by where Marie currently was now, being born a mutant aromatically put a target on your back. Most people hated and feared what they didn't understand and that usually meant lynching that which was different from them. At her mother's request, Marie hide her claws from the people of Peach Creek. As the weeks rolled by, the trailer park girl began to manifest other abilities. Her senses became enhanced, especially her sense of smell. She became stronger and more agile then most humans, but for a Kanker, it meant that she was now the strongest of the trio. After she accidentally burned her hand on the oven while cooking pasta one night, she discovered that she had a healing factor, which came in handy whenever she received a broken nose from either of her sisters. However, the fights they picked with their middle sibling were now few and far between since they feared of unleashing the beast that resided deep with Marie's soul.

Then came the day that was the starting point for all this madness she about to go through. During one lunch period at school, she noticed that the school jock, Kevin, was doing harm to her beloved Edd. She had attempted to merely scare him off to stop him picking on the nerd, but in a foolish act on his part, Kevin whirled around and cracked her across the jaw with a surprise right hook. Blinded by rage, Marie unsheathed her claws and slashed Kevin across the face, permanently scarring him in the process. In no time at all, the lunchroom became a hive of frenzied panic. Students and teachers alike began to frantically run around about the room, all the while screaming in fear of the girl whom they already were afraid of. In the middle of all the chaos, Marie could only stare at the mix horror, confusion and astonishment that was all over Double-D's face.

Less than an hour later, the convoy arrived to deal with that they considered a hostile mutant and attempted to put down Marie. However, the blue haired girl refused to die and unleashed all of her animalistic fury on the black-ops team. The young mutant and the squad sent to kill her turned the entire school into a warzone in their battle. Soon enough, the soldiers realized that stood no chance in killing the girl and instead took Lee and May at gunpoint, knowing that she had a connection to them. Marie wanted to keep fighting and rescue her sisters, but much to her surprise, Edd and his friends quickly came and got her out of the area before more well-equipped troops could arrive to put her down.

Realizing that these men knew about her, Marie rushed home with the Eds in tow, only to find her family's trailer totally wrecked and her mother nowhere to be found. Marie didn't cry at the sight of her home destroyed and her missing mother, she was to anger to cry. Ignoring the words of caution from Edd, Marie quickly scavenged what previsions she could find from the destroyed mobile home, namely her mother's double-barrel shotgun and revolver, before following the scent of the men who had stolen away her family. After three days of hounding the soldiers, Marie finally tracked them to a large tower that had been converted into a make-shift research facility out in the middle of the Canadian wilderness and was surrounded by a large chain-link fence. Now here she was, standing ready to rescue her family and cut through anyone stupid enough to get in her way.

With the revolver hosteled to her hip and the shotgun strapped over her back, the blue-haired girl approached the building, keeping her claws sheathed for the time being until she was ready to pop them out at the right time. As she moved closer to the building, the two guards that were posted at the front gate noticed the mutant and quickly raised their weapons toward the girl.

"It's the mutant!" one of the guards shouted in surprise "take it down!"

Before Marie could even reach for either of her weapons, the two guards opened fire with their automatic weapon. In one solid burst from the soldier's weapons, Marie collapsed to the ground in a seemingly lifeless heap. Seeing that the mutant had gone down, the two men cautiously approached the girl's body with their rifles still at the ready. Once they were close enough, Marie sprang back to her feet, popping her claws out as she did. Before the guards could move, Marie had already impaled her claws into their throats. She pulled them back and let the guard's corpses hit the ground in unison. Marie then turned her attention toward the front gate, which she easily cut through before stepping through it.

The moment Marie stepped into the building, she was immediately greeted by several soldiers, all of whom had their guns aimed directly at her. with a low, animal-like growl, Marie leapt at the nearest soldier, landing on him with her claws going throw his chest. The room lit up with sound of rapid gunfire as the other soldiers tried to take down the mutant as she attempted to evade the hailstorm of bullets that were being fired at her. The bullets that did manage to hit her, she tried her best to shrug off. She lunged at another trooper and slashed him across the belly, causing his stomach and other organs to fall to the ground. She kept up the attack by stabbing another man through the chest, killing him instantly.

As she ran at her other attackers, Marie retracted a set of claws from one hand and quickly dew her revolver and opened fire one other soldiers, killing one with a solid head shot and wounding another with bullet through his leg, making him collapse to one knee in pain. Seeing a perfect opportunity, Marie jammed the claws in her other hand into the wounded trooper's torso and began to use him as a human shield as she fired back on her other assailants as she continued to move toward them. Despite the fact that the mutant was using their now dying comrade as form of defense, the remaining soldiers had no qualms about killing one of their own in order to try to kill their target. As the bullets shredded through her shield, Marie continued to fire back at her enemies, killing at least two more in the process.

Soon enough though, her defense was torn asunder by the wave of bullets and her gun had run dry. Marie quickly put her weapon away and tossed the corpse aside before racing toward the now remaining three soldiers, who had unfortunately run out of ammunition at the same time she did, the only deference was that they lacked the ability to heal rapidly. With one clean stroke of her claws, the trailer park girl disemboweled all three of them before they had a chance to reach for their sidearm. With everyone in the room dead, the young mutant took this chance to let her healing factor go to work and mend the wounds she had taken. Unlike her famous farther, Marie's healing abilities were not as fast as his was. Depending on injuries she took, it could take up to an hour or more to repair her body from whatever punishment it had taken, and in less than thirty minutes, she had taken more damage than she had ever been dealt before in her life.

However, the sound of a descending elevator dashed the girl's hopes that she could at least repair some of the injuries she had sustained. With a haggard, annoyed sigh, Marie strode over to elevator door and waited for it to open. The second it opened to reveal four more heavily armed soldiers, Marie shoved a set of her claws through the first man's face before jumping into the elevator to get at the rest of them. Rather than try to shoot at blue haired girl in such a confined space, the remaining three assailants instead used combat knives to do battle with the mutant. Marie blocked one of the trooper's knives with one set of her claws, but soon found herself letting out a yowl in surprised pain as one of the other soldiers jammed his knife into her shoulder and the other was repeatedly stabbing into her back.

The combined pain from the knives and the bullet wounds she had recently sustained, the trailer park girl found that her legs were starting to buckle from agony her body was in. She pushed off the man she currently fighting and knocked him backwards into the elevator's controls, causing it to go back up. Marie kicked at the second man's legs out from under him before throwing herself backwards, hitting the third soldier with the full weight of her body. The man she had kicked quickly picked himself and drew his sidearm and fired two rounds into the young mutant's side, earning a cry of the girl and her full attention. With a snarl, Marie cut off the soldier's hand, making him scream in agony. But just as the middle Kanker was about to finish him off, the first trooper she had fought with had found his chance to strike and delivered a powerful jab into the back of her head, nearly knocking her off balance. Marie whirled around and attempted to stab him, only for the third solider to recoiled and ram her into the wall of the elevator.

The solider then pulled his knife from Marie's back and began to slash and stab at the mutant while the first solider added on to her pain by punching and kicking anywhere he could. Despite the beating she was taking, the trailer park girl noticed the soldier whom she had removed the hand from trying to ready his rifle and finish the mutant. Seeing her chance, Marie waited until he had taken aim at her before making her move. She shoved her whole body forward, knocking the two men backwards and right into the line of fire, killing them both.

Marie staggered to her feet and looked down at the wounded solider, who looked back at her with wide, fearful eyes. Suddenly, the solider raised his weapon upwards and fired at the ceiling. At first, Marie was confused by this, that was until she felt the elevator begin to rock violently from side to side. It didn't take much for Marie to figure what the wounded man had done and made the quick decision to find a way out of this place. She jumped up to the ceiling and cut open a hole to allow her to crawl out of the elevator and into the shaft. She quickly dug her claws into the wall mere seconds before the elevator cable snapped, sending it falling to the floor like a dropping bomb, all the while the man who had attempted to kill her let out a long scream that was only silenced when the elevator smashed into the ground floor.

The young mutant removed a set of claws from the wall and sheathed them so that she could pull out the knife that still lodged in her shoulder. Marie grit her teeth as she yanked the blade from her person, allowing her to toss it down the shaft. Even though she could heal from her wounds, that didn't mean she couldn't feel pain, and right now, her whole body was wracked with it. The only thing that was holding together at this point was her healing factor that was working in overdrive and her adrenaline that was somewhat staving off some of the pain she was in. Marie knew that this was only the start, and if she was to save her family, then she'd have to take, and delve out, a lot more hurt before this was over.

"Christ, how does Wolverine put up with this shit?" she asked herself

Marie sometimes thought about her estranged farther and what she would say to him if she ever had a chance to meet him. Sometimes it came out as an anger rant and other times it was a tearful speech. In truth, she didn't know how she wouldn't know how she would really react if she was in presence of her heroic farther, and perhaps that was for the best, after all, she had grown up just fine without a farther this long, she could continue to do so as far as she was concerned. Besides, Wolverine had far more important things to worry about instead of concerning himself with some bastard child he had spawned from a one-night stand.

Once her shoulder wound had somewhat healed, Marie to use her claws to climb upwards in the elevator shaft and toward the next set of doors that were only several feet from where she was. But just as she had reached the door, it was suddenly pulled open by a soldier who had heard the elevator crashing to the ground. The moment he popped his head into shaft and looked down to see the mutant clinging to the wall, Marie reached upwards with a set of her claws and stabbed him in the leg before flinging him over her head and downward into the shaft. The soldier screamed all the way down the shaft until he hit the bottom, killing him impact. With the door open for her, the middle Kanker pulled herself up toward the doorway crawled through it before finally getting back to her feet. Marie found herself standing in a long, white colored hallway that had about eight rooms—four on each side of the hall—with another elevator at every end of it.

Unfortunately for the young mutant, the screams from the soldier she had tossed down the elevator shaft had attracted the attention of several more paramilitary cronies Marie had been slaughtering since she stepped onto the premises. By her count, there were at least fifteen soldiers standing between her and the elevator at the end of the hall, and all of them were of coursed armed with assault rifles and other weapons that that adorned their body armor. Marie let out a frustrated groan as the soldiers took aim and opened fire on her.

As the bullets pierced her skin and ripped up her insides, the blue haired girl charged at full speed at her attackers with her claws at the ready. Marie leapt forward and slashed across two men's throats as she landed in a crouched position. While still crouched, the trailer park girl reached out and stabbed through another man's leg before flipping him into the air, she then quickly got to her feet and impaled her claws through his chest in mid-air, pinning him to the ground in process. As she yanked her claws out of her victim's body, she failed to notice another solider coming out one of the rooms carrying a shotgun in his hands.

The newcomer fired a blast from his weapon into Marie's back, making her stumbled forward and cry out in pain. In a fit of pure anger, the blue haired girl whirled around and chopped off the soldier's bottom jaw in one clean swipe. Marie caught the falling appendage in mid-air and impaled it through what was left of the trooper's face. Wasting no time, Marie reached for her own shotgun and fired two shells directly into the head of another solider, causing it to explode all over his comrades, covering them in a gory mass of blood, bone and brain matter. Horrified that they were now covered in the gore of a dead man, the soldiers were taken aback this, causing them to temporarily stop firing on the young mutant.

Seizing this opportunity, Marie took her now empty shotgun in one hand and turned it upside down so that the butt of the gun was sticking out. With her make-shift club in one hand and fistful of claws in the other, she moved toward her still stunned opponents. She swung her club across one man's face, breaking his jaw upon contact with it before slicing his throat open. Moving quickly, she bashed another solider in the face, this time breaking his nose, but before she could finish him off, another trooper fired a burst from his rifle at close range into Marie's torso, once again nearly lose making her loose her footing. Fueled by her rage, Marie quickly reached out with both sets of her claws just as he was about to shot again and jabbed one set into his shoulder and the other into his arm. Instead hitting his intended target, Marie forced the man to gun down several of his own troops by redirecting his arm toward them. one his clip was dry, the blue haired girl jabbed her claws through his neck and let his corpse fall off her claws.

Thanks to the well-placed shots from her latest victim, Marie had thinned out her number of adversaries down to only six soldiers. Her enemies quickly reached for their weapons and fired upon the mutant once again. This time however, Marie avoided and evaded the bullets the best she could rather than just run right into them. Moving swiftly, Marie slashed off one man's arm before cutting the rest of him open. Another two she stabbed through the face in unison. Seeing that shooting at her was useless, the remaining trio of troopers all rushed her at once and tackled the trailer park girl through a door and into a men's restroom.

Marie managed to shove her adversaries off her body before quickly grabbing a nearby sink and ripping it out of wall and chucking at one of the soldier's head, breaking his skull open the moment it made contact with his head. Marie then lunged at another man, but he grabbed her wrist and instead punched her in the face, knocking her back before delivering and powerful roundhouse kick across the side of her head that made her fall to the ground. He attempted to finish off Marie off with a stomp to her neck, but the young mutant rammed her claws through his foot and proceed toss him into a nearby bathroom stall. She was just about to finish him off when a sudden powerful surge of electricity coursed through her body that caused her to fall to her knees.

Marie turned her head around to see the other solider standing over her with a stun baton in his hand. The young mutant tried to get back to her feet, only to receive another painful shock to her body, this time pinning her to the ground. With everything she had, Marie reach up and stabbed her attacker in the groin, forcing a cry of agony from his mouth as he recoiled away from the mutant. Marie then staggered back to her feet, snatched the baton out of his hands and impaled it through his eye. The second the trooper hit the ground, the other solider, whom Marie and stabbed in the foot and tossed into a bathroom stall, came up behind her and tackled back out into the hallway, punching and kicking like a madman as he did. As the two continued their struggle on the ground, the solider then took a grenade from his belt and pulled the pin of on it.

"If I'm dying, then I'm taking you to hell with me, freak!" he declared

Rather than try to dignify such corny last words, the blue haired girl noticed that the elevator door opened to reveal at least five more soldiers within it. with one swift kick, she sent the suicidal man tumbling into the elevator where his comrades were attempting to step out, only to be knocked back in. Seconds later, the grenade went off the moment the doors closed, causing them to be blown open as the elevator itself—as well as everyone inside of it—to be utterly blown apart.

"Guess I'm taking the stairs" the middle Kanker said to herself

Thankfully, there was an emergency staircase to her left which she took. No sooner had she taken two steps into the staircase did Marie nearly fall to the ground. Her entire body was a mess and her healing factor had all but reached its limit at this point. In just two hours, she had been shot, stabbed, shocked and nearly blown up. This was more punishment then she had ever taken before and she was starting to fear that her healing factor would not be able to save her before she able to rescue her family. The trailer park girl could feel her legs start to buckle yet again and had to sit down, retracting her claws as she did. She just needed five minutes to rest, that's all she asked for from whatever divine being was watching her try desperately to save her mother and sisters.

Was her family even still alive? she honestly didn't know. All Marie could smell was the scent of blood, gun residue and death, all of which blocked her sense of smell from picking up her family anywhere in this whole building. Was all of this for nothing? Was all this killing done in the name of people who were already dead? The thought of losing her family was more than the young mutant could bare. True, she had her share of disagreements with her siblings and her mother, but they above all else loved her for who she was, even when it was revealed that she was a mutant they still cared for her.

Just then, amidst the stink of all the blood and gore that filled her nostrils picked up the faint scent of something familiar to her. A spark of hope arose in her mind as she focused on that single scent as she took a large inhale of air in order to properly determine what she had smelled was true. Sure enough, it was in fact the scent of her mother and sisters, whom by the smell of it, were still alive and not too far away from where she was now. She just had to follow the scent up the stairs and it would lead her straight to them. with a feeling of hope in her heart, Marie forced herself to stand and began to make her way up the winding staircase.

Just as she took the first step, seven more soldiers burst through a doorway at the top of another flight of stairs. This squad, however, did not carry assault rifles, but instead carried submachine guns for close quarters combat. Marie let out a low yet fierce growl as she popped her claws once again and marched upwards the staircase to meet with them, refusing to let these men who had just signed death warrants stand between her and her family. Before the man at the front could even raise his weapon, Marie slashed his stomach open and spilled his organs to the staircase. Marie snatched the dead man's weapon and tried to fire a burst from her new weapon, it was immediately smacked out of her hands by another solider before knocked her to the ground with a blast of bullets from his own gun.

Marie forced herself to quickly stand back up, bringing her claws upwards through his groin all the way up to his chin. A pair of the squad rushed her at one and pinned her against the wall, breaking a rib upon hitting the wall. Marie pushed them back just as she noticed the other three raise their weapons toward her and fired. But just before the bullets hit her, she stabbed the men who had tackle her in the torso and pulled them in front of her so that they would take the bullets that were intended for her. Using the corpses as a shield, Marie moved forward until she was close enough. Once she was, the blue haired girl dropped her defenses and decapacitated two of the men in one strike before grabbing the third and tossing him over the railing, letting him fall until his back landed on one of the lower railings of the staircase.

Just then, four more soldiers burst through the same doorway the first seven had emerged from with their small arms at the ready. Forcing herself into a run, Marie hurried up the stairs and cut down one of the four new opponents before stabbing another through the face and kicking a third down the stairs. The fourth man shot another barrage of bullets right into the young mutant's gut, making her double-over in pain. Still reeling from the agony she was in, the middle Kanker reached up and impaled both sets of claws into her attacker's face before splitting his head open and let the shredded chucks of meat that were his brains fall to the ground.

After dispatching the solider, Marie heard the low groan of the man she had kicked down the stairs and saw that he was still alive, but now he was clutching onto a broken ankle he had received during his tumble down the stairs. She about to kill him when an idea came to into her mind. She walked back over to the wounded trooper and kicked his gun away from him before he could reach it. The young mutant then reached don and snatched up his sidearm before two bullets into his already wounded leg in order to get his attention, which painfully did. After tossing the pistol away, Marie grabbed the wounded solider and forced him to stand. She then proceeded to pin him against the wall, all the while glaring with a deep, burining rage in her eyes.

"If you wanna live you'll take me to were my family is being held" Marie demanded

"Fuck you, mutie!" he shot back defiantly "Give me one reason why I should help you?!"

"I'll give you two" she answered

Marie put her fist under his chin and unsheathed two of her claws on each side of his head.

"And there's gonna be a third reason that's gonna go through your skull if you say no" the young mutant warned

To get her point across, Marie slowly released her middle claw and let it touch the underside of his chin. The trailer park girl could almost see the soldier's hard-core military bravado leave his body through the sheer terror in his eyes. Marie couldn't help but let a small smirk escape the side of her lips at the sight of it all.

"Ok, Ok! I'll take you to them!" he relented "just don't kill me!"

"Good answer" the mutant said before pushing him in front of her "Now lead the way"

"But my leg— "he attempted to reason

"Is still attached to you" Marie cut him off before showing him her claws again "but I can change that at any time, bub"

With her captive leading the way, Marie was taking up the stairs and in the direction of where her family was being held. The blue haired girl forced the soldier to take her via pathways that not put them in the line of fire again. Soon enough, the wounded man brought her to a door on the upper level of the building and after typing in a security code, it opened to reveal Lee, May and her mother all tied down to chairs and judging by the bruises on their faces, the men who had captured had gone to work on them for information about Marie's whereabouts.

"Marie!" May gasped in surprised before looking her over "you look like shit"

"Thanks" her sister deadpanned before limping over to them and cut them free "you guys ok?"

"Are you?" her mother asked as she looked her over with concern in her eyes

"Nothing I can't heal from, mom" her daughter assured before coughing a huge wad of blood "I hope"

"None of you are leaving here alive!" Marie's captive declared "they'll be more coming to put you down for good!"

He then pulled out a knife a swung at the blue haired girl. At the same time he had did that, Marie popped a set of her claws and swung them at her hostage.

The soldier cut deep.

But Marie cut deeper.

The two wounded combatants collapsed to the floor, however, Marie was the only one of the two who got back to her feet—with her sisters' assistance of course. She had done it, despite everything she had managed to somehow pull it off. She her family held her in warm embrace, Marie wondered that if her farther was here, would he be proud of her to? Honestly, she didn't care, all that mattered to her was the fact she had been reunited with her family. And besides, she had a feeling that her dad would do the same she had done to protect the ones her loved as well—and probably done so many times.

Just then, the Kanker family heard the sound of another squad of soldiers coming down the hall toward them, and from the smell in Marie's nose, it was more than the other squads she had faced before. Her healing factor had barely managed to heal most her wounds and the massive amount of blood she had lost was making her feel dizzy and unbalanced. But this time she had her family backing her up, and if these morons thought one Kanker was bad, wait till until the faced four very anger Kanker's.

With Lee, May and her mother at her side, Marie unleashed her claws and let loose an animal-like war cry, letting the oncoming soldiers know that their end was near. And with that, Marie Kanker, the daughter of Wolverine, lead her family into battle.