Birth of a Sabertooth
A/N: Just a little fic I wrote which explains the drastic change in Victor Creed/Sabertooth between the events of X-men Origins: Wolverine and X-men. The story of how Stryker's 'favourite soldier' Victor Creed became Magneto's ferocious acolyte, Sabertooth.
Victor Creed stepped out of the military chopper that had landed him in the middle of a field somewhere near the US-Canadian border. He stepped off the chopper and was escorted off by one of the soldiers who'd accompanied him on his flight towards his final destination; the other one who had piloted the chopper was presently flying it away. Victor however did not really need the young soldier, who was obviously terrified of him, in any case. His senses, as keen as ever, were all he needed and he gave the soldier a sinister smile, baring his sharpened teeth glistening in the afternoon sun, before rushing along the field at his own fantastic pace, leaving the terrified cadet to nearly pee in his pants out of sheer fright at his encounter with a mutant who, according to his superior's files, would as soon as kill a person as look at him; no exaggeration intended in that statement.
Within ten minutes, Victor had already discovered the small innocuous looking hut that bordered the edge of the field where the woods began. Within thirteen, he was already leaping down the stairway that descended from a hidden entrance in the hut. Within fifteen, he had already raced down an underground tunnel to come across the large room that was not just a room, but unmistakably, a lab. In all the years he'd worked for William Stryker, Victor had seen too many such labs to not recognise one. These were labs where mutant's abilities were tested, and in many cases, even augmented. And he, Captain Victor Creed of the US Army, had gladly provided the lab rats many a time.
Facing the entrance of the tunnel, almost as though he was expecting him, was none other than the man for whom Victor would have done anything, for he was the one who had enabled him to realise who and what he really was; to achieve his true potential, his true purpose, as nature itself intended. Colonel William Stryker seemed to have aged a good ten years since Victor had last seen him, though it was only three, in actuality. The military scientists face brightened somewhat on seeing his 'favourite soldier'.
"Ah, Victor", Stryker said. "I knew it was only a matter of time before you found me. I'm glad to see that inaction hasn't dulled your senses".
"Who says I haven't been busy?" Victor asked coldly.
And indeed, as Stryker undoubtedly knew, Victor Creed had been busy these past three years. Busy with the seemingly impossible task of tracking down his half-brother, James Howlett.
When he had last encountered 'Jimmy' on Three Mile Island, he had told him that they would never 'be done' with each other and he meant to keep his word. But Jimmy had seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth. Victor had tirelessly tried to track him down for years, waiting for the day when he could see the expression on his brother's face as he beheld the man who had killed his pathetic little girlfriend, this time for real. But he had never succeeded in his search. At one point, he'd even feared that Stryker might have found some way to eliminate Jimmy after all. But he dismissed that though; James was simply too strong, too powerful for any mere human, no matter what resources were at his disposal, to be able to kill him. So he wandered on from place to place, fruitlessly searching for Jimmy, getting involved in innumerable bar fights along the way and occasionally leaving a trail of bodies behind. He suspected it was the bodies which had enabled Stryker to find him.
Victor had at first resented Stryker's forced intrusion back into his life and his search for his brother. But Stryker had explained his reasons for 'abandoning' Victor for so long and they seemed fairly plausible to him. Stryker had needed time to firstly extricate himself from the debacle of Three Mile Island, not to mention the murder of General Munson. After about a year of closed court proceedings and secret meetings with top-ranking Senators and even the Vice President, Stryker had not only managed to get himself cleared of all charges, but had even cleverly convinced the US Government that, as he was the closest they could get to an authority on the mutant phenomenon, they would do well to utilize his services. There were more and more mutants emerging with each passing day and someone needed to know how to deal with them. And thus Stryker was given virtually unlimited resources for his new position as the unofficial 'mutant consultant' of the State Department and Pentagon; resources whose use lay entirely at his discretion.
Stryker had sent word to Victor that he now had the resources to help him, not only in the search for his brother, but also in his search for greater power. Victor had still felt bitter over Stryker's refusal to give him the adamantium, but Stryker now promised to remedy that as soon as Victor reported in. Which Victor did, feeling there was no harm in responding to Stryker's summons, but on the contrary, a great deal of benefit. And hence, he had taken the chopper ride Stryker had arranged to this hidden base, so close to the other one in Alkali Lake.
"Ah yes of course, I've heard of your little... 'escapades', Victor", Stryker said with a smile. "Though I'm sorry to say that you have been wasting far too much time on this matter of Logan", Stryker said, referring to Creed's brother by the name he'd chosen for himself after they had first started working for Stryker; the name of their father.
"I'm not going to let him walk away", Victor said adamantly.
"Of course you wouldn't", Stryker replied in an understanding tone. "But as far as I'm concerned Weapon X is a closed chapter by now. A failed experiment. I don't see any benefits either for myself or for the country in trying to control that feral beast we've both helped each other create. I wish someday, you would realise that".
"This isn't about the country. This one's personal", Creed sneered. "He left me. Left us. For that pathetic slut with her little mind-games. I can't let that pass".
"If Victor...if you find Logan, then I leave it up to you to decide his fate. I myself have no interest in him any longer. But what I have in mind for you, might possibly help you complete your personal 'mission'", Stryker smiled wryly. "You know you can't beat him, Victor...not without the adamantium. And I can't give you the adamantium because you'd never survive the procedure. But I simply discovered recently that there are more ways of giving you power than adamantium..."
"What do you mean?" Creed asked, genuinely interested now.
"Merely that I am giving you the opportunity to realise your true potential...to reach the next stage of your evolution. You would agree that after nearly 150 years, you're way over-due for it", Stryker said in a matter-of-fact tone.
"What are you going to do?" Victor asked.
"Simply enhance you. Genetically. Your senses will be sharper. So will your regenerative abilities. You will be stronger, faster, more agile...more focused even", Stryker said. "If anything could kill you before by any stroke of luck, it won't be able to after you go through with this".
"Will I be able to take down the runt and his shiny claws?" asked Creed.
"Very likely" Stryker said. "Well Victor", he added in his most persuasive tone, "The ball is in your court now".
All it took Victor was a vision of a larger, more powerful version of himself beating his little brother Jimmy to a pulp for him to make his decision. "Let's do this", he said.
Less than 24 hours later, Victor Creed was in the tank, tubes attached to nearly every part of his body, breathing through an oxygen mask. Stryker turned towards his colleague, Dr. Cornelius, who seemed terrified at the very prospect of what he was about to do-create another unstoppable weapon.
"Don't worry", Stryker assured him. "This won't be a repeat of Weapon X. That I promise you".
"I hope not. Creed is even more ferocious, more rogue, than Weapon X was. If he turns on us, we're truly done for", the doctor hesitantly said.
"Just do it, Dr." replied Stryker.
Dr. Cornelius gave the commands and the technicians pushed the switches to start pumping the specially designed hormones and chemicals meant to augment mutations in the body of an already mutated individual. Victor was heavily sedated (Stryker had found a sedative a year ago which could temporarily counter-act his healing factor) and yet, even unconscious, he began thrashing wildly in the tank. In the meantime his body was growing visibly large; the muscles around his arms and legs developed further, his hair and his nails grew rapidly, his hair turning from brown to an almost tan colouring, his facial hair also growing rapidly.
Stryker observed the transformation in silence while Dr. Cornelius monitored Creed's vital signs, which seemed to be rapidly increasing. "His regenerative abilities have increased exponentially", the doctor commented at one point during the procedure. "I doubt if he will remain sedated for much longer. But it will take him time to recover from the procedure itself after it's completed".
"How long?" Stryker asked sharply.
"About ten, maybe fifteen minutes. Might be as little as five if his healing factor gets enhanced any further. Why?"
"We can't afford to make the same mistake we did with Logan", Stryker said gravely. "As soon as the procedure is complete, I want his memory erased".
"Oh", Dr. Cornelius seemed visibly surprised by his superior's decision. "But?"
"It's not that I don't trust Victor now, doctor. It's just that this...obsession he has of hunting down his brother is something I cannot let compromise our objectives", said Stryker. "Besides, he will be much easier to control this way and the last thing we need is another maverick killing machine on the loose", said Stryker.
"I understand", Dr. Cornelius said as he began issuing further instructions to the technicians.
Before long the procedure was complete and Creed's, the new enhanced and even more bestial looking Victor Creed's healing factor had already begun his recovery from the process which would have killed any normal man several times over. "He's healing much faster than I anticipated. I estimate we have less than five minutes before he fully recovers", Cornelius said in a panicked voice.
"Begin the memory erasure", Stryker ordered.
The headset was lowered onto Creed's temples and Cornelius activated the device that would invade Creed's mind and erase the feral mutant's memory and identity. However, barely a minute into the process, Creed had already started thrashing wildly again in the tank. "He's waking up!" exclaimed Cornelius. "Increase power", Stryker ordered.
But Creed had by then already swiped at the tubes connected to his body and at the wires connected to the head-set he was wearing.
"Head-set is offline", Cornelius shouted, panicked.
But Stryker wasn't paying attention to what Dr. Cornelius was saying. He was staring, terrified, at the tank, as Creed opened his eyes and stared straight into Stryker's, sending a chill down the latter's spine. It was like staring into the eyes of not just a sadistic murderer, but a beast. A wild beast.
Creed stared at Stryker, at Cornelius, at the lab for a few moments before he let out a tremendous roar that would have made the wildest of predators themselves tremble, as his two powerful arms shattered the glass of the tank, destroying it instantly, the thousands of infinitesimal shards impaling the nearest technicians, killing them instantly. With another roar, Creed rushed out of the remains of the tank, mauling one of the soldiers standing guard nearby; ironically enough, the same young terrified soldier who had tried to escort a very different Victor Creed to the base the previous day. Stryker stood by, for the first time in his life feeling an intense primordial fear stealing through his brain as he watched, for the second time, one of his soldiers, one of his creations, slipping out of his control.
Guards had flooded the underground lab by that point, and tranquiliser dart guns were aimed at Victor and were fired, but they had absolutely no effect. Creed leaped amidst the soldiers and tore them apart...literally. He then turned towards Stryker and growled. For a few terrible moments when time stopped, Stryker truly felt that his time had come. But, surprisingly, Creed simply stared at him for a few moments, as though confused perplexity dawning upon his savage features. Finally, he simply turned and raced out through the tunnel.
In the aftermath of the violent incident, reinforcements had been called in and paramedics were carrying the wounded and the slain on stretchers out of the underground lab that had been instrumental in the creation of a horror far worse than Frankenstein's monster. A near-hysterical Dr. Cornelius too had to be sedated and escorted out of the base. Only Stryker remained, with his few trusted lieutenants. The visibly shaken 'consultant on mutant affairs' turned towards the commander of his special squad of elite special forces veterans and said simply, as he had in the aftermath of the Weapon X experiment, "Hunt him down. Take his head off". But he knew as he had failed with Logan, he would fail to ever find and control Victor as well.
Weeks later, in Washington, he met Cornelius after the latter had recovered from his hysteria. As soon as they sat down opposite to each other in the empty office, Stryker asked, "How far did the mind-wipe go?"
"I don't know. I doubt if I even got halfway through with it. But the combined effects of the mind-wipe and the enhancement procedure are likely to have taken their toll on his mind. I think there would very likely be some...disorientation. At any rate, his memory is not completely intact, nor is it ever likely to be in the near future at least", Cornelius explained.
Stryker recalled the sight of Creed's confused expression as he stared at him and realised, with a breath of relief, that the good doctor was right.
"I just wonder though...two amnesiac half-brothers, with the most lethal weapons nature and science can impart, on the run with no memory of who they are or even what they are. What happens if they ever encounter each other again?" asked Dr. Cornelius.
"I pray they fight to the death then, Cornelius", said Stryker. "Because, God knows that we can't".
* * *
Epilogue
For months he roamed the forests as the wild beast he was, hunting and killing all that came in his way, human or animal. It did not take him long to realise that he could not be killed, that he could heal from any and every wound. He was invincible, the king of the jungle!
He wandered the Appalachians and then went further south. And the rumours began to spread throughout the American countryside. Rumours of the ferocious beast, the murderous monster, who was nicknamed by some poachers who mistook him for prey and were preyed upon themselves instead, as a 'Sabertooth'. A name which had a menacing ring about and which he took a liking too, lacking one of his own.
For months Sabertooth drifted from town to town, cage-fight to cage-fight, brawl to brawl and slaughter to slaughter...living a life which even the most hardened of serial killers would cringe at. And then slowly, very slowly, the memories began to emerge. Fragments, disconnected from the whole and faint, but still memories of a distant past. Memories of a violent childhood under an abusive father. Memories of wars and killings and death. And the faint recollection of a name-Victor Creed. His name...though he did not consider it as such any longer.
With each fresh corpse in his present life, the memories of his past life faded away into his sub-consciousness. This was who he was now, the wildest, most ferocious and absolutely un-killable predator. And somehow, he knew that this was always what he had wanted to be, even in the 'old days'.
But eventually, as with any animal, or any human being (and the Sabertooth was indeed an unsettling mixture of both), the monotony of being the best gradually set in and he soon longed for a greater purpose, for greater challenges...he longed for a nemesis who would be worthy of his prowess.
And one day, many years after his escape from a confinement he could scarcely recall now, he met a man, an extraordinary man, who would impart him with that sense of purpose. A man who, like Sabertooth, had long since shed his birth name and now called himself Magneto. A visionary, a revolutionary...a powerful man worthy of Sabertooth's respect. A man who had imprisoned Sabertooth in a cage he hastily and effortlessly constructed with levitating metal bars with a mere wave of his hand, when the latter had tried unwisely to attack him during their first meeting.
It was Magneto who told him that he was neither a man nor a beast, but something else entirely. Something far greater. A mutant. Homo superior. The next step in the evolution of mankind. Somehow, Sabertooth was strongly reminded of another man, a man he had met in the distant past he could not clearly remember, though that man had been a mere mortal trying to play God. Magneto on the other hand, truly had the power of a God.
Magneto taught Sabertooth the lessons of mutant supremacy and his vision of a world where mutants would take their rightful place as the rulers of earth. A world where men like Sabertooth would be free to roam the wild and purge the world of those whom nature had decreed were unworthy to live in it. And all Magneto demanded in return for setting Sabertooth on the path to his true destiny was his unwavering loyalty. Sabertooth wholeheartedly agreed.
For over a year he tirelessly worked for Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutants, capturing whom he needed to capture, killing whom he needed to kill, and enjoying himself immensely. He had found a purpose, a challenge...he was satisfied. The Sabertooth was happy. And yet his life was yet missing one thing. An adversary. Someone who would truly be worthy of his prowess. Someone whom it would be a pleasure to kill, after much murderous toil.
And one day, he found that adversary as well. He had been sent by Magneto to the north, near the Canadian Rockies, to abduct a young mutant girl instrumental to his latest scheme for mutant dominance. And as he lay in the woods silently, awaiting the approach of his target, he sniffed the air around him and found a familiar smell. A smell that stirred something in his mind. Something in his memory from so long ago...
His mind, or what little was left of it after so many years of bloodlust, was curious as to the owner of this smell. But his instincts ignored his mind, as they always did. His instincts were jubilant. It didn't matter who or why, he just knew that he'd found his adversary...