Hey yall, just want to let you know, please bear with me! I know this a long chappy, but it's worth it, as this is going to be one heck of a story! It'll probably entwine with my other X-men story, Clockwork, so go read that too! That's why I'm setting the dates very specifically, because everything will fall into place.

I just want to clear out that I assume Wolverine leaves the X team in the year 1974, having joined it around 1973. It's around the Vietnam war era, but the movie wasn't too specific.

Anyways, this chapter happens in the past… and it happens rather fast… I'm usually more detailed, but I'm trying to skip the useless stuff so this doesn't become too long.

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own X-men, unfortunately, because they'd never get to see Wade Wilson and Victor Creed again…

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1964, ten years earlier in southern Manitoba, Canada

"C'mon, Chelsea, it'll be fun!" One of my friends urged, pulling on my joined hands, trying to make me step out of my bedroom door and into the corridor. The two other girls behind her, both friends of mine as well, giggled and gestured towards me, inviting me to join them. They were doing a heck of a lot of noise, and I was happy my parents were out for the evening; they wouldn't have tolerated this kind of excited behavior in the house…

"Lisa, you know how much I don't like going out to… parties like that. Just go along with Kim and Sue, I'll stay home!" I assured her, twisting my wrists to reclaim them as my own.

"And you'll do what all evening?" Kimberly asked coolly from behind Lisa, who was still holding on to me. "Do you homework? Study for Monday's test?"

Susan burst out laughing from beside Kim. "Yeah! Come on, Sea, it's Friday night, your parents are out until way late, you can at least go to David's party, have a good time and then drop back here before anyone will notice that you're gone!" She gave her short, dark hair a fluffing with her hand, smoothing out a few wrinkles in her long skirt at the same time with the other.

I sighed, defeated, and managed to yank my arms free of Lisa's grip. The three girls squealed in delight at my abandon and I raised a threatening finger before any of them could say anything, glaring at the lot.

"If I get into trouble for this…"

Kimberly shook her head, silencing me with a wave of her hand. "You worry too much, Chelsea… It'll wrinkle you! Now let's get going!"

I followed suit, my head hanging low. Truth was, I was indeed worried, but for reasons the girls could never understand. I knew very well what happened when I went to places that had too many people, too much noise and where my control over myself started to slip… I knew what lay beneath my calm, calculated appearance and that if I lost control, if I let that loose, I would never be able to live normally again.

I bit my lip guiltily. My three only and closest friends had no idea of what walked amongst them…

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David's father was a rich attorney and they had a huge house on an even huger piece of land… that's why the boy was so popular at our school and that's why he fought to maintain that popularity by hosting big bonfire parties in the woods near his home. I knew he hadn't personally invited me, mostly because he had no idea who I was, but I think Lisa knew him, because we had no trouble finding the place and being let onto the terrain by a few security guards securing the main gate to the lot.

Their entire plot of land was surrounded by a big fence and the only way in or out was through the gateway we had just crossed. I figured that would be a good safety-first argument if my mom and dad ever found I had been here. The thought of them knowing I'd gone out sent shivers down my spine, almost erasing my general nervousness at being present at the party. Lisa, sitting in the backseat of Sue's car with me, took my hand and patted it reassuringly.

"Why are you so nervous about this? I know you don't go out much…"

Kim scoffed. "Try not at all…"

Lisa glared at the back of her head before turning back to me. "Don't listen to her. Everything's going to be okay."

I nodded, not free from worry.

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At least my friends were having fun… I sighed as I stared at them dancing around with a couple boys near the fire, laughing and giggling sheepishly, holding alcoholic drinks in their hands. I had declined taking any, preferring to keep a maximum of my self-control when people from all sides surrounded me like this. For the moment, I was alone on a little bench just beyond the circle of light coming from the flames, enjoying the peace I was given.

I spend quite some time in this embarrassing solitude before I saw a young, blonde boy heading my way with a smile on his face, casual steps carrying him towards my huddled, shy form. I tried to act like I hadn't noticed him, looking in the other direction, but I could not ignore the sudden fluttering of my heart. I had recognized him even though he was far away, had recognized that perfect face, flowing hair and glacier eyes…

"Heya." Michael dropped down on my seat, right next to me. I didn't dare look up at him, my cheeks turning a bright red.

"Hi." I whispered.

"You don't look like you're having a lot of fun…"He noted, checking me out.

I shrugged. "I'm not a… a crowd person."

I heard him laugh softly and finally glanced up, smiling shyly. I had made him laugh! The nicest, cutest boy in school was laughing at one of my comments! My heart was threatening to burst, but the moment was ruined when a strange feeling twisted my stomach… it felt as though something had stirred… I concentrated, pushing that feeling down, holding it, locking it away. Michael was talking, but I wasn't listening, trying to muster the strength to fight down that

"What do you say?" He obviously repeated himself, sounding slightly annoyed.

"To what?" I had to fight myself not snap back at him, my temper suddenly short.

Michael rolled his eyes. "To the two of us going off a bit… further. You're not a crowd person and I've had enough of this party… we could make this more personal."

"I-I… uhh"

Before I could answer anything, he got up and pulled me after him towards where a small forest started, away from the bonfire, as I threw an alarmed look over my shoulder towards my friends… they were of course too busy flirting openly to pay any attention to me. I wondered what I should do, if I should scream.

Once under the cover of the trees, Michael, grabbed my upper arms brutally, quite painfully, and made me swirl around until my back hit the rough bark of a tree. I gasped from the jolt of pain that coursed through my body, still feeling strange under my skin… something was walking up inside of me and I was having trouble concentrating on anything else. The young, handsome boy pushed his body closer to mine and I focused my shy gaze on his heavy one, heard him panting excitedly onto my face.

"You know, Chelsea, you're a really pretty girl…" He murmured, moving closer still.

"Michael, I…" He cut me off very suddenly, pressing his full lips roughly against mine, stopping me dead in my tracks.

When I had imagined this adorable boy kissing me in my reveries, it had always been gentle, delicate and romantic… something was wrong now, however; his hands were slipping over my hips, uninvited, and his mouth was too strong against mine, too demanding… the thing inside me stirred angrily as I desperately tried to push him away a little to calm down, get some air…

"Please, I don't… like this…" I gasped as soon as he let me breathe for a second. But Michael ignored my plea completely, pulling at my thin sweater until it broke at the seams. I cried out, pushing him back, but he held on tightly, grabbing me around the throat, staring into my terrified eyes coldly, cruelly.

"You can't say no to me." He snarled, almost like a beast, now fighting to lift up my skirt. I felt tears streaming down my face as I clenched my legs shut, panicking and wondering what I should do…

I was spared the need to do anything at all when his big, cold hand grabbed my thigh beneath my clothes. Something inside me snapped with a nearly audible crack, something finally broke free from the dam that had been holding it back… that anomaly living within me was making it's way out of the chains I had set up for it when I found out it existed, years ago, and somehow, I wasn't keen on holding it back at that very moment.

All the changes happened rapidly, suddenly, but with a wave of pain that nauseated me for the few seconds it lasted. My sight changed instantly, becoming very accurate, precise and the night became as bright as day as every sound surrounding me was perceptible, from the ruffling to leaves to the beating of Michael's heart… a dull, long pain erupted near the end of my fingers and inside my mouth: I could feel my nails grow suddenly, even though I had no idea how long they were becoming; in my jaw, needle-sharp fangs pressed harshly against my bared lips…

My skin felt electrified as every tiny contact sent jolts of sensations to my brain… it was almost agonizing… but not nearly as excruciating as the desperate need to maim the boy that was trying to force his manhood into me now… he hadn't even noticed the changes that had occurred so brutally to me.

I let a thick, angry growl bubble in my chest before allowing it to seethe through my exposed line of fangs, a dangerous rumble that would not even have been emitted by a rabid tiger. The sound finally attacked Michael's attention and he looked down at my face, stopping dead in his tracks… he had seen my eyes, and I knew just how terrifying they were now: no irises, only an inch-long black slit for a pupil that stared, unblinking, terrible and menacing. His gaze fell to the row of pointed teeth in my mouth and he finally took a rapid step back, crying out his fear.

I gathered myself into a pounce against the big tree and… bolted right at his throat, burying my mouth into his arteries, cutting through the soft flesh like a warm blade through butter, actually enjoying the spurts of warm liquid that filled my jaw in cadence with his petrified heart. We fell back like two lovers, tumbling into the fallen leaves with grunts, me on top of him and him, with arms flailing around wildly.

A gurgle escaped the open gap in his neck and I pulled my own head back, crouching on his airless chest, releasing a bellowing roar up into the night, screaming my joyous victory. It felt so wonderful to have reduced this stupid boy to a mass of dead skin… to have stopped him from harming me… to have fought against his useless strength… I was animal, damnit, a killing machine and a perfected hunter!

Voice arose nearby and I saw, with that perfect vision on mine, a couple female humans coming my way… I crouched again, waiting patiently, silently…

They finally burst out of the trees near me and saw the scene before them with weak human vision… they were three, all of them screaming…

I got ready to leap again, feeling something swishing right behind me. I glanced back… ah, yes, I remembered now; I had a tail when I became like this… it was pulsating from my lower back like a tentacle, long and catlike, showing my eagerness to attack again, to kill…

"Chelsea!" One of the human females screamed, pointing towards me.

My animal brain froze… what remained of my humanity fought to hold it back… I knew who this girl was… she was one of my friends, yes! Her name was Lisa! I could not harm her! Nor could I attack the two others…

A low growl got caught in my throat and I backed up slowly on all fours, getting off the dead boy's chest and slinking off into the night. None of the humans dared follow me.

"Sorry…" I hissed just loud enough for them to hear, barely able to talk under the needful strain of the beast I was. I felt my basic instincts taking over forcefully… now I needed to run, run as fast as I could and as far as I could to get away…

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1965, a year later, in South Carolina

The name 'illegal alien' was tossed around a lot these days… and the government was hot on everyone's heals to get those who didn't belong in the USA out of the country as fast as they could. Most 'illegal's were of course either from Europe, Mexico and Asia and had a good tendency to stand out of the crowd, unable to adapt, resulting in their rapid capture and deportation.

I, on the other hand, was from Canada and was a pretty smart cookie. Not to mention I was very proud.

If I had to leave the country at any time in the near or distant future, it would be by my own free choice and not because I did some stupid mistake and got caught at it. I had changed since that faithful night where I was forced to leave my life behind and flee, and since then, I had to admit I was doing pretty damn well for a seventeen-year-old pretending to be a legal adult.

My thick auburn hair was longer, falling to my lower back and I had grown heavy bangs that covered my forehead nicely. My body had muted slowly into that of a young woman, breasts swelling and hips curving, and makeup had aided in making my soft face seem a little harsher. I still went by happily by the name of Chelsea, but was affectionately named 'Catsea' at the small restaurant where I worked just outside of town.

Of course, no one knew I did not exist in the US registrar, all thinking I was a normal, adventurous woman of 21 years of age (with fake ID), born and raised in Georgia, living in Estil, South Carolina for a year already.

No one knew that the apartment I rented in the tiny city if Estil had no official lease, that I paid the owner cash, no questions asked, and that my boss at the Barlow Restaurant & Bar paid me under the table because I told him I didn't want my asshole of a father to prove he could stop paying for me now that I had a job…

Lying had been easy. Running had been easy too: I had trekked from Manitoba across the border and through the States under that half-human, half-animal form, living from what I hunted and sleeping in caves and abandoned shacks. When I had decided to settle down and start living humanly again, organizing a home, job and story had been a breeze…

But actually starting to be a human again… that had been hard. The beast inside me was something I could not deny; for whatever reason I was plagued with that odd power, I was plagued with it for good. It had broken free once, and it would do so again, I knew. No matter how hard I tried to push it away, it remained just beneath my skin, seething, burning, stirring at the slightest occasion, always on the lookout for cracks it could slink through, for moment where it could be free.

Of course, I worked surrounded by people, mainly because I had no other choice. At times it was extremely difficult to control myself, especially when drunken men and their jealous wives started to assault me, or when flirtatious males began thinking they could have their way with me. At those times, the beast would push through just a little, just enough for me to growl animally in an answer to those people, show my teeth like a feline and slink off to the kitchens to find loneliness.

That's why I had earned the name 'Catsea'.

Life was not easy, but I had nowhere else to go, and I was tiered of running endlessly without a goal. I just squared my shoulders and kept doing my job as a waitress to earn my paycheck and assure my apartment and food. A life of boredom, but a life nonetheless… being a rabid beast was not something I was keen on, no matter what.

But just when I thought there was nothing else out there for me than solitude and fighting against my nature, I was put on the path of a creature even more amazing that me.

God works in mysterious ways, they say…

On a night like so many others, when I was working past my normal hours because the restaurant was overcrowded, I saw him for the first time. He came in; so unsure of his own footsteps, as if wondering what on earth he was doing here and why he had decided to stop at this particular place. He was wearing a long, beige trench coat that bulged slightly on his back and that he refused to take off even when I offered to hang it, his short, blonde hair falling in messy strands around his light, flawless face, electric blue eyes sweeping the room suspiciously.

I found him beautiful from the very first second. He was so handsome in a perfect, powerful and yet delicate way… I had never seen another human being muster that strange kind of loveliness before… and as soon as I laid my eyes on him, the beast inside me stopped fighting.

Even through my exhaustion, my wariness and my savagery, I suddenly felt at peace. I understood that I was suddenly where I was supposed to be and as if someone had whispered it to my ear, I knew that everything was finally going to be okay, that the world had just fallen into place.

It took him longer to notice me, however. After I offered to take his coat and he denied, I proposed to seat him in a quiet corner of the restaurant, but he did not answer… he was still looking around slowly, searching for someone in particular.

I was hesitant to leave him, knowing I had a lot of work on my hands, but somehow, I didn't move a muscle until those striking blue eyes finally, slowly, fell on me. They changed noticeably when our gazes crossed, becoming suddenly very soft, almost… amorous.

"There you are. I'll sit over here." He said in a deep, soothing voice, gesturing to the lonely table for two I had wanted to propose to him in the first place. "Come see me when you're done with your work."

I sensed all the gentleness, all the kindness coming from him just by the way he talked. If I were to see his soul, I somehow knew it would be a blinding, pure white color, like that of a saint. He walked off more assuredly now, as if he had new purpose in his life, sitting down at the table.

And I resumed work, hurriedly now, very curious of whom this man was and why he had come in here like he was searching for me. Funny enough, I didn't even think for a second that he might be from the government or something… I trusted him with my very life and we had only exchanged a few words!

When I was done, I joined him at the table. And we talked until the night turned back into day.

His name was Gabriel and he had been wandering over the country for the past year, searching for something… he didn't even know what! He had interrupted his whole existence to follow an overwhelming instinct to find that unknown thing that he was meant to find. Those instincts had finally ceased driving him nearly insane when his eyes fell on me, after searching the whole restaurant like he had searched so many other places, always on the lookout…

He told me that he was different from other people and he knew that I was different too… that didn't alarm me in the slightest, but I did ask him how he was unusual, if he had a beast inside him like I did.

He laughed in clear, crystalline amusement. "No, not at all. Even thought I don't know exactly how you are special, I can guarantee I am nothing like you. But don't let that make you sad; no one out there is like me either, even if I know that there are many… mutants in our likeness in this world."

I was amazed! I had never imagined there would be others like me, living with weird powers and abilities, trapped in a human world that could only fear and resent. I wanted him to show me what he was, so we decided to drive out into the forest, away from civilization, and explore further our own differences.

We were two cosmic pieces of a puzzle that had finally been put together. The animal inside me could feel it more than I could: my destiny, my whole existence was entwined with this Gabriel's, and we'd known each other for only a couple hours.

The two of us walked through the forest when we got there, so perfectly in unison… he belonged at my side like no one else ever could. But I couldn't even tell if it was love that I was feeling, or if it was something greater, something beyond the two of us…

We reached a remote clearing after a lengthy walk and it was only then that Gabriel finally removed that trench coat of his. What I saw remained etched in my memory until today, the amazement that I felt still as strong, and I remember staring at his beauty with a gaping mouth…

When his coat slipped off his strong shoulders, a set of huge, magnificent, blindingly white angel wings unfurled from his back, opening to their full extent and reaching at least three meters each. I knew they were soft before I even touched them, just like I knew that I belonged wrapped up in them before we said another word.

"You're an angel…" I finally whispered.

Gabriel chuckled gently. "Not exactly." His wings folded to his back and I noticed he was bare-chest… it had to be impossible to wear a shirt with such appendages coming from his shoulder blades! "I have these wings, which are nearly impossible to hide, by the way, but I am not God-sent. I have never seen Him, nor do I know if He is real."

I didn't mind. Wings or not, he was perfect either way. "Do you have any other powers?"

He nodded. "My skin in indestructible… well, against attacks such as bullet wounds, scratches and blade wounds… fire doesn't burn me and the cold doesn't freeze me. But repeated assaults eventually do cause me to wound, even if I heal within seconds afterwards. Also, my wings can become like this…" He extended them fully behind his back… I gasped when I saw the feathery appendages turn into hard, yet very mobile metal. Every feather was as detailed and delicate as before, but had become a hard, unbreakable armor of cold, metallic silver.

"You're immortal." I concluded, awed.

"Again, not exactly." He smiled pleasantly. "I am over seven hundred years old, having walked this world for eons without aging a day, and I cannot be mortally wounded, but I know for one that I am not immune to poison or mental destruction…"

"Mental destruction?" I was puzzled. He shrugged slightly, keeping his handsome smile.

"There are 'mutants', like us, who do not have physical transformations. Instead, they can accomplish things with their minds… some came move objects around, while others can… manipulate the psyche or outwardly annihilate it."

I was so full of question, so desperate for answers. He touched my shoulder with a big, gentle hand soothed me immediately.

"Show me what you are." He whispered.

And without a second thought, I let go of the beast, let it take it's rightful place as a part of me, let my nails extend into two-inch long claws, my eyes become iris-less pupil slits, my teeth a long row of needle-thin fangs, my tail erupting from my back lazily, long and feline…

But this time everything was different.

Everything was painless.

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God what a long chapter; 9 pages! Sorry there aren't any of the Origins characters yet, but I swear they'll be there in the next chapter! You guys know I'm slow on starting up, but I just wanted my two OCs to get their story down and understood.

Team X will step in next chapter, promise!

Please review, tell me what you think!