FERAL BONDS
Disclimer: I don't own anything that has to do with the x-men. This is for fun, nothing more.
"Gawd, not today" came from Rogue as she watched the train wreck of a day get even worse as Lance once again tried to get Kitty to go on a date with him. For the third time. Today.
Rogue sighed.
Again.
Loudly.
Kitty's valley-girl voice floated over the din of the mid-break hallway. "Like, are you even listening to me? I said like no!"
Lance, unperturbed by this seeming act of denial on Kitty's part said, "Come on babe, you know we are perfect together, you remember how well we meshed when your powers came out."
Rogue debated weather or not sticking around was worth listening to Lance make an ass out of himself in public again, or if she would just deal with Kitty's whining that she got left behind.
Rogue slammed her locker door closed and stalked down the hall. Shoving an unlucky freshman out of her way, she grabbed Lance's shirt and slammed him into the wall.
"Listen to mah Alvers, leave Kitty alone or ah'm gonna put yah bahk in the gawd damn hospital again. YA HEAR MEH?"
Normally, this declaration would have caught the attention of at least a few passing students, but then again, they had gotten used to what had become called "Rogueisims" by the student council.
"Hey Rogue, little respect for an old teammate here?"
"Piss off Alvers. You ain't mah teammate, and you ain't mah friend, so just scram before I get mad"
Lance looked at Rogue's eyes and saw the dancing spark or flame in them and wisely decided that today was not a good day to die, so he made the first intelligent decision of the week..
"Sure Roguey, whatever." He mock rolled his eyes. "Don't worry Kitty, I'll call you later"
And with that, he beat a hasty retreat as the bell rang. Rogue and Kitty just stood in the rapidly clearing hallway. Neither of them saying anything that would break the companionable silence.
But of course, Kitty being Kitty, couldn't let something like a companionable silence live, spoke out.
"Like thanks Rogue. I was getting like totally angry at him."
Rogue kept her mouth shut, thinking of the look she had started to see on Kitty's face just before she had jumped in.
--Kitty almost looked as though she was....snarling.--
"You like, ok there Rogue?"
Rogue's attention snapped back to the spunky mutant that she had been rooming with since she came to the X-men. She shifted into her standard confident "I don't give a damn" pose and smirked at Kitty.
"Of course ah'm fine, takes more than Alvers to screw meh up."
Kitty just stared at Rogue for a second, trying to find what made her so confident.
--God, I wish I had her confidence-- Kitty thought dejectedly.
"Thanks again Rogue, I like owe you one." Kitty smiled and tore off down the hallway to yet another class.
Somewhere in the mountains of Colorado
"Congratulations Dr. Sorenson, Home Watch is most defiantly impressed with the progress you are getting with the new Weapon project. There is even talk that Secretary Douglas is revising his statement about you being a poor risk after your failure in Canada."
Dr. Sorenson tore his eyes off the final setup for the last implantation procedure and dragged out his best political smile.
"Thank you General, the Secretary's tolerance has been invaluable in the reconstitution of the Weapon X program here in the States" -You pompous ass, you Home Watch cretins don't know what you're dealing with here. Mutants in the military? A fantasy I've created to get funding.- His eyes slid over to another monitor in the console. -Oh yes, with the Mk2 program almost complete, I'll have created the perfect mutant hunter!-
The monitor showed a brightly lit cage covered with filth. His eyes blazed with determination when they fell on the lump of flesh that was in the corner, barely moving.
"After today General, there will only be one more implantation procedure to finish and the Mk2 will be online and operational." The scientist remarked.
Men moved towards the cage, armed with tranquilizer guns. They ignored the suddenly snarling body as it tore itself off the floor and lunged at the bars. The rifles barked as one and the body smashed to the floor, still as death. The attendants removed the subject and left the screen.
"We already have the secure base prepped for it's training once you are done Doctor." the silence stretched for a few seconds before the General continued, "This time the subject is secure correct? We don't want a repeat of Canada Doctor."
Dr. Sorenson winced as he was once again reminded of the escape of his previous subject from the original Weapon X experiment. -Wolverine-
"Don't worry General, this location is totally secure." He rapped his knuckles against the glass separating them from the implantation lab. "Take this window for example, twenty-eight inches of hardened bulletproof glass that sandwiches four inches of BakeLite tactical foam. Not even the Oval Office is more secure than this room."
Just then, a gurney is maneuvered into the lab with an unconscious form laying on it. The attendants roll the subject to an almost vertical harness and strap him in spread-eagled and with his arms straight out to the sides.
The General's eyebrow arched and he asked "How exactly do you restrain it? From the data we were given, the subject's enhanced healing factor would make him operationally immune to sedatives."
Sorenson's face instantly slid into a grin as he explained. "It's actually pretty easy to render him immobile when you know his genetic structure to the last base-pair General. And in all actuality, he's not sedated. You are correct, it wouldn't be practical to use a sedative on him, so we had to improvise."
"How so Doctor?" The smile the doctor had was starting to unnerve the General, there was more than a small hint of madness peeking out from behind his eyes as he spoke now.
"As I said, it's pretty simple. We don't use a sedative, we use a neurotoxin."
"And that doesn't damage the subject?"
"No General, it doesn't. Well, it does. The particular neurotoxin we use is exceedingly painful as it destroys the nerves in it's spinal column."
"You say that like it doesn't matter Doctor. Spinal nerve damage is serious."
Sorenson just waved off the General's concern and continued. "Using the toxin has multiple benefits for us here General. First, it's fast acting. Second, it's the only thing that will incapacitate it for more than a few seconds. Third, the subject never actually looses consciousness. And fourth, the subject has no long-term effects from the nerve damage. The enhancements we put into it's healing factor clear up the damage in 15 minutes at the high end." Sorenson broke off as the scientists finished their setup and picked up their tools.
He smiled. "Well General, here is the moment you have traveled here to see, the implantation of adnamantium into a living body." His smile grew even larger.
The General stared into the lab. Speechless as he saw the subject start to move again.
"You are positive it is secure in there Doctor correct?"
Sorenson sneered and said. "Of course I am General. We have done this before."
The General saw the scientists pick up the scalpels and start the incisions and he swallowed hard. "What kind of anesthetic do you use on it? You said it burned sedatives out of it's system too fast."
A sharp bark erupted from Sorenson's mouth. "Anesthetic? You are correct General when you say that the subject burns it out of it's system too fast to be practical. So we took the easy route, we don't bother with anesthetic."
The General's face turned white. "So you are vivisecting it with zero painkiller?"
Sorenson glanced at the General with a quizzical expression on his face. "Of course we are. It's just a mutant. In fact, is just a mutant that WE made. Who cares if we give it anesthetic or not?"
The General's eyes were locked on the now screaming and writhing figure in the next room. He followed each and every movement of the scalpels as they tore skin and muscle from bone and were attached to clamps on the harness.
--My God, are they spreading it's.no, not it's.his chest open?-
The General caught a glance of a bloody hand winding a thick strip of metal around the boy's ribs and was forced to turn away when he saw the bluish-white glare of a welding torch spark.
The last thing he noticed was that the boy never stopped screaming.
Back at the Mansion
Logan strolled into Xavier's office after getting a page while he was teaching a self-defense class in the danger room.
"What is it Chuck, I was busy. Those kids aren't gonna train themselves"
Xavier mearly shook his head at Logan's gruff exterior. "We might have a new mutant on our hands Logan. Cerebro has been picking up intermittent signals from somewhere in Colorado. Unfortunately, it's not able to give any more information."
"So..what? Is Cerebro broken again? Or is Half-Pint screwing around with the mansion?"
A chuckle escaped Xavier's lips. "Kitty was my first suspect, but no, she had nothing to do with it. I had Ororo run a full diagnostic on Cerebro and everything is functioning normally. It just seems as though the mutant is in our world for just a few seconds before it disappears again."
Logan flopped down on a couch and stuck his trademark cigar into the corner of his mouth before replying. "So it's another porter like Kurt?"
Xavier sighed. "I don't honestly know Logan. I would like to say no because Kurt is only gone for a fraction of a second between his teleports, and this mutant is gone for hours at a time." his hands started rubbing his temples "And there is another concern. When I try to contact them, the only thing I can determine is that the mutant is in pain, great pain."
Logan chewed on the cigar, lost in his own thoughts about the mutant.
--Another porter like the elf. Great. Wait a sec..-
"You said somewhere in Colorado Chuck. Where exactly in Colorado are they?"
Xavier sighed. "I honestly don't know Logan. Cerebro is unable to narrow the search down any further due to the intermittent contact we are getting. But I am worried. The mutant is in pain. We need to locate him or her as soon as possible."
"Well, don't know what you expect me to do about it Chuck. But I'll get the team ready for another `field trip`. I got a feeling we're gonna be heading out soon.
"I hope so Logan, I dearly hope so." And Xavier turned back to Cerebro.
Disclimer: I don't own anything that has to do with the x-men. This is for fun, nothing more.
"Gawd, not today" came from Rogue as she watched the train wreck of a day get even worse as Lance once again tried to get Kitty to go on a date with him. For the third time. Today.
Rogue sighed.
Again.
Loudly.
Kitty's valley-girl voice floated over the din of the mid-break hallway. "Like, are you even listening to me? I said like no!"
Lance, unperturbed by this seeming act of denial on Kitty's part said, "Come on babe, you know we are perfect together, you remember how well we meshed when your powers came out."
Rogue debated weather or not sticking around was worth listening to Lance make an ass out of himself in public again, or if she would just deal with Kitty's whining that she got left behind.
Rogue slammed her locker door closed and stalked down the hall. Shoving an unlucky freshman out of her way, she grabbed Lance's shirt and slammed him into the wall.
"Listen to mah Alvers, leave Kitty alone or ah'm gonna put yah bahk in the gawd damn hospital again. YA HEAR MEH?"
Normally, this declaration would have caught the attention of at least a few passing students, but then again, they had gotten used to what had become called "Rogueisims" by the student council.
"Hey Rogue, little respect for an old teammate here?"
"Piss off Alvers. You ain't mah teammate, and you ain't mah friend, so just scram before I get mad"
Lance looked at Rogue's eyes and saw the dancing spark or flame in them and wisely decided that today was not a good day to die, so he made the first intelligent decision of the week..
"Sure Roguey, whatever." He mock rolled his eyes. "Don't worry Kitty, I'll call you later"
And with that, he beat a hasty retreat as the bell rang. Rogue and Kitty just stood in the rapidly clearing hallway. Neither of them saying anything that would break the companionable silence.
But of course, Kitty being Kitty, couldn't let something like a companionable silence live, spoke out.
"Like thanks Rogue. I was getting like totally angry at him."
Rogue kept her mouth shut, thinking of the look she had started to see on Kitty's face just before she had jumped in.
--Kitty almost looked as though she was....snarling.--
"You like, ok there Rogue?"
Rogue's attention snapped back to the spunky mutant that she had been rooming with since she came to the X-men. She shifted into her standard confident "I don't give a damn" pose and smirked at Kitty.
"Of course ah'm fine, takes more than Alvers to screw meh up."
Kitty just stared at Rogue for a second, trying to find what made her so confident.
--God, I wish I had her confidence-- Kitty thought dejectedly.
"Thanks again Rogue, I like owe you one." Kitty smiled and tore off down the hallway to yet another class.
Somewhere in the mountains of Colorado
"Congratulations Dr. Sorenson, Home Watch is most defiantly impressed with the progress you are getting with the new Weapon project. There is even talk that Secretary Douglas is revising his statement about you being a poor risk after your failure in Canada."
Dr. Sorenson tore his eyes off the final setup for the last implantation procedure and dragged out his best political smile.
"Thank you General, the Secretary's tolerance has been invaluable in the reconstitution of the Weapon X program here in the States" -You pompous ass, you Home Watch cretins don't know what you're dealing with here. Mutants in the military? A fantasy I've created to get funding.- His eyes slid over to another monitor in the console. -Oh yes, with the Mk2 program almost complete, I'll have created the perfect mutant hunter!-
The monitor showed a brightly lit cage covered with filth. His eyes blazed with determination when they fell on the lump of flesh that was in the corner, barely moving.
"After today General, there will only be one more implantation procedure to finish and the Mk2 will be online and operational." The scientist remarked.
Men moved towards the cage, armed with tranquilizer guns. They ignored the suddenly snarling body as it tore itself off the floor and lunged at the bars. The rifles barked as one and the body smashed to the floor, still as death. The attendants removed the subject and left the screen.
"We already have the secure base prepped for it's training once you are done Doctor." the silence stretched for a few seconds before the General continued, "This time the subject is secure correct? We don't want a repeat of Canada Doctor."
Dr. Sorenson winced as he was once again reminded of the escape of his previous subject from the original Weapon X experiment. -Wolverine-
"Don't worry General, this location is totally secure." He rapped his knuckles against the glass separating them from the implantation lab. "Take this window for example, twenty-eight inches of hardened bulletproof glass that sandwiches four inches of BakeLite tactical foam. Not even the Oval Office is more secure than this room."
Just then, a gurney is maneuvered into the lab with an unconscious form laying on it. The attendants roll the subject to an almost vertical harness and strap him in spread-eagled and with his arms straight out to the sides.
The General's eyebrow arched and he asked "How exactly do you restrain it? From the data we were given, the subject's enhanced healing factor would make him operationally immune to sedatives."
Sorenson's face instantly slid into a grin as he explained. "It's actually pretty easy to render him immobile when you know his genetic structure to the last base-pair General. And in all actuality, he's not sedated. You are correct, it wouldn't be practical to use a sedative on him, so we had to improvise."
"How so Doctor?" The smile the doctor had was starting to unnerve the General, there was more than a small hint of madness peeking out from behind his eyes as he spoke now.
"As I said, it's pretty simple. We don't use a sedative, we use a neurotoxin."
"And that doesn't damage the subject?"
"No General, it doesn't. Well, it does. The particular neurotoxin we use is exceedingly painful as it destroys the nerves in it's spinal column."
"You say that like it doesn't matter Doctor. Spinal nerve damage is serious."
Sorenson just waved off the General's concern and continued. "Using the toxin has multiple benefits for us here General. First, it's fast acting. Second, it's the only thing that will incapacitate it for more than a few seconds. Third, the subject never actually looses consciousness. And fourth, the subject has no long-term effects from the nerve damage. The enhancements we put into it's healing factor clear up the damage in 15 minutes at the high end." Sorenson broke off as the scientists finished their setup and picked up their tools.
He smiled. "Well General, here is the moment you have traveled here to see, the implantation of adnamantium into a living body." His smile grew even larger.
The General stared into the lab. Speechless as he saw the subject start to move again.
"You are positive it is secure in there Doctor correct?"
Sorenson sneered and said. "Of course I am General. We have done this before."
The General saw the scientists pick up the scalpels and start the incisions and he swallowed hard. "What kind of anesthetic do you use on it? You said it burned sedatives out of it's system too fast."
A sharp bark erupted from Sorenson's mouth. "Anesthetic? You are correct General when you say that the subject burns it out of it's system too fast to be practical. So we took the easy route, we don't bother with anesthetic."
The General's face turned white. "So you are vivisecting it with zero painkiller?"
Sorenson glanced at the General with a quizzical expression on his face. "Of course we are. It's just a mutant. In fact, is just a mutant that WE made. Who cares if we give it anesthetic or not?"
The General's eyes were locked on the now screaming and writhing figure in the next room. He followed each and every movement of the scalpels as they tore skin and muscle from bone and were attached to clamps on the harness.
--My God, are they spreading it's.no, not it's.his chest open?-
The General caught a glance of a bloody hand winding a thick strip of metal around the boy's ribs and was forced to turn away when he saw the bluish-white glare of a welding torch spark.
The last thing he noticed was that the boy never stopped screaming.
Back at the Mansion
Logan strolled into Xavier's office after getting a page while he was teaching a self-defense class in the danger room.
"What is it Chuck, I was busy. Those kids aren't gonna train themselves"
Xavier mearly shook his head at Logan's gruff exterior. "We might have a new mutant on our hands Logan. Cerebro has been picking up intermittent signals from somewhere in Colorado. Unfortunately, it's not able to give any more information."
"So..what? Is Cerebro broken again? Or is Half-Pint screwing around with the mansion?"
A chuckle escaped Xavier's lips. "Kitty was my first suspect, but no, she had nothing to do with it. I had Ororo run a full diagnostic on Cerebro and everything is functioning normally. It just seems as though the mutant is in our world for just a few seconds before it disappears again."
Logan flopped down on a couch and stuck his trademark cigar into the corner of his mouth before replying. "So it's another porter like Kurt?"
Xavier sighed. "I don't honestly know Logan. I would like to say no because Kurt is only gone for a fraction of a second between his teleports, and this mutant is gone for hours at a time." his hands started rubbing his temples "And there is another concern. When I try to contact them, the only thing I can determine is that the mutant is in pain, great pain."
Logan chewed on the cigar, lost in his own thoughts about the mutant.
--Another porter like the elf. Great. Wait a sec..-
"You said somewhere in Colorado Chuck. Where exactly in Colorado are they?"
Xavier sighed. "I honestly don't know Logan. Cerebro is unable to narrow the search down any further due to the intermittent contact we are getting. But I am worried. The mutant is in pain. We need to locate him or her as soon as possible."
"Well, don't know what you expect me to do about it Chuck. But I'll get the team ready for another `field trip`. I got a feeling we're gonna be heading out soon.
"I hope so Logan, I dearly hope so." And Xavier turned back to Cerebro.