A/N: This is before Wolverine and Sabretooth have their falling-out, hence they're still partners in the military groups they're in and not trying to murder each other. I place this story just shortly before their falling-out, after William Stryker (see the second X-Men movie) finds out his son is a mutant, and thus before Wolverine gets put through the adamantium tank, so he will have bone claws rather than metal. No flames for the OC, please, I've had her for 8 years now and whittled her down pretty good into not being a Mary Sue, which is quite rampant in fanfics involving Wolverine.

"What time is it?"

"How the hell should I know? Do you see a watch on me?"

"…How many days has it been?"

"Runt, if you don't know how many days it's been, how would I?"

"…"

"S'been two or three."

The two sat in silence, chained in the open-air trailer (the sort that you would use to transport livestock) that served as a make-shift prison in the camp set up in a jungle clearing. It was mid-day, so insanely hot and muggy, though the two seemed cool as a cucumber despite being covered in a glistening sheen of sweat that soaked through their military-issue fatigues. Their mission certainly hadn't gone how they had wanted it, and they had been captured in the process of their reconnaissance effort in the area. Granted, they had killed about a dozen or so of their would-be captors before being taken down; hence the chains. The smaller of the two (though no less hairy than his companion) narrowed his eyes at movement on the other side of the compound, sensing his partner shift to get a better look himself.

"This is bullshit! They're not illegal aliens or spies and you know it! I don't care about the red-tape nonsense that your uppers are pulling…Major Stryker wants them released now," they both clearly heard, the feminine voice carrying across the clearing like a bell. It especially stood out again the all-male group that was holding them. Victor Creed, aka Sabretooth, snorted with a feral grin and gave a side-glance to his partner in crime Logan, aka Wolverine.

"Cavalry's arrived," he quipped and stretched as best he could against the restraints (really, they couldn't put in some padding at least?) connecting his wrists to his ankles and securing them to the floor. Logan snorted and shook his head, watching the diminutive auburn-haired girl give a dark look to the officer in charge of the camp and snarl in his face. She was in her mid-twenties and fairly petite, though had inherited her mother's curvy figure which was fairly clear despite the unisex fatigues she wore.

The heavily-tanned militant stared the girl down, though was quickly becoming frustrated that she refused to back off, the release-request papers half crumpled in his hand as he glanced up toward the trailer, "No, no release. They're being held for killing a dozen of my men." He was only half surprised to see that the girl failed to look impressed; instead she simply glanced at the keys hooked to his belt. He quickly put his free hand over them, hiding them from her sight.

Adria Maxwell glared at him once more, and then gave a heavy, defeated sigh, "Can I at least talk to them?" She raised an eyebrow, suggesting that it wasn't really a request and at the faintest hint of a nod from the officer in front of her, she stalked off toward the trailer, muttering not-so-under-her-breath about incompetent superiors. "You guys are on your own to get out of here, even Stryker's people don't have enough clout with these idiots," she spoke as she reached the bars. Though she knew it took way more effort than she could think of to damage the two, she was still relieved to see them in one piece.

"Keep screeching, Catty, maybe you'll make him deaf," Victor replied, teasing her about her "code-name", Catalyst. She simply glared for a moment, sticking her tongue out at him and leaned on the bars of the trailer.

"I've got a single-controller GPS tracker for you…I'll find you as soon as you're out. There is some stuff I've gotta tell ya about before you head back to base," she replied, ignoring Victor's smirking face from her childish response to his teasing. She eyed Logan, knowing that his curiosity was piqued, but kept her mouth shut on details. "A lot has changed in the two months you've been gone."

Logan raised an eyebrow at that, catching the tracker as Adria tossed it to him after glancing over her shoulder. He turned slightly to look at his companion when the larger man quietly growled. "What?" Logan asked.

"Prove it's single-controlled," Victor bit out, watching the girl like a hawk.

"Oh for heaven's sake…" She rolled her eyes and glanced over her shoulder while digging out the controller from her pocket, "You can see from the make of the tracker that it's a single," she replied, flicking on the device, holding the speaker against her leg to dampen the beeping that emitted for just a moment before she flicked it back off. "And you can hear that this is the controller that tracks it. Satisfied Mr. Paranoid?"

Victor growled again, glaring at her and was satisfied to see a slight flinch as he did, Adria quickly looking over her shoulder again in the process to cover it. "Fine, but don't be late. We're not gonna wait for you if you go off and do whatever you girlies do. If you're not with us by daybreak tomorrow, you're on your own."

Adria rolled her eyes and nodded, "I'd better go; he's starting to look at me funny." She thumbed over her shoulder at the officer in question as the man stood huddled, speaking to two of his cohorts while eyeing her suspiciously.

Logan nodded, tucking the tracker into his pocket, "Be careful kid, they might not be happy that you found 'em at all." Adria looked back at him and nodded, giving a tight, brief smile before heading back to the jeep she had used to reach the camp.

She waved to the officer as she climbed in, "I'm out of here, but don't think Major Stryker is gonna be happy about this…you'll be hearing about it." She ignored any response the man gave as she started the jeep up and tore out of the camp. She wasn't going to go far, knowing that the others would make it out of the camp soon enough. Her heart caught in her throat a bit, however, when she glanced in her rear-view mirror and noticed another jeep following her out. She snarled under her breath and at the nearest break in the trees, sped off the barely-visible road into the brush as fast as she dared to drive.

The tires of the jeep gave a sharp squeal as she hit a ridge of rocks and pulled to a stop on a hill beside a shallow but swiftly-moving river. She had just enough time to duck under an over-hanging section of the rocks before the other jeep barreled over the rocks and nearly creamed her vehicle. She stood shin-deep in water, her combat boots and socks soaking through as she pressed herself to the stones like glue and waited silently. Stupid, itchy wool socks, she thought to herself briefly, resisting the urge to shift her feet as the offending sock started to cling to her. It wasn't long before the man in pursuit wandered close enough to see her, shouting in surprise as she jumped out from under the rocks, dodging quickly around the vehicles.

She wasn't fast enough, however, and as the first shot from his hand-gun rang out she felt the hot-cold bite of the bullet hit her square in the back. The force of the shot sent her tumbling and she landed flat on her back, her entire chest full of prickly pain as she attempted to regain her breath and swallow the taste of copper that threatened to fill her mouth. She looked up over her head as the man approached and glared, a bubbly snarl escaping her lips, causing the man to flinch nervously, his twitchiness pulling the trigger and causing another shot to go off. This time the hit landed a bit off to the side in her chest, causing her to yelp and curl against herself.

The man was apparently satisfied that she was wounded enough to not cause any more trouble and lowered his weapon, starting back for his jeep. Adria simply stayed curled and glared after him, a nasty grin spreading on her face as she concentrated. The pained howl that escaped the man let her know that it had worked, smoke escaping from the man's mouth as his chest cavity burned from the inside-out. She smirked, slowly crawling back to her feet as the man's corpse rolled slightly down the hill from where he had fallen and landed in the river with a plop.

She watched the body as it disappeared over the rapids a few yards down and hauled herself into her jeep with effort. With one hand she rooted around the passenger seat for a towel, knocking an empty bottle and broken plastic Easter eggs out of the way, using her other hand to turn the tracker on. She idly watched the screen as the GPS information popped up, turning down the volume of the beeping. She wrapped one towel that she had found around her ankles in an attempt to soak up some of the water, using the smaller washcloth she had found to soak up the blood that was still trickling from her chest and back. The over- and under- shirts she wore were hopelessly stained, though she was glad for the vinyl seats of the jeep due to their easier clean-up. She sighed heavily and slouched, waiting for her sign that the men had escaped.

The jeep rolled up several hours after dark to a secluded clearing on the nearby coast, where the men had made camp, several miles from the now unused (due to the death of all the personnel) camp that Logan and Victor had been held at. It really wasn't much of a camp, as they couldn't afford to make a fire in case of any search groups and they didn't have tents or much in the way of survival gear. She climbed out of the jeep, a bit more gingerly than she would have liked, due to the lingering pain from her slowly-mending injuries. "Honestly, what would you two do without me?" She gave a cheeky grin at them, rooting around in the back for the two extra survival packs she had brought.

"What happened? We heard shots a while after you left," Logan demanded before she got another word out, appearing in front of her nearly as quickly as she could turn. He gripped her shoulders firmly, though not tightly enough to hurt, and examined the caked blood on her clothing that just wouldn't dry in the humidity.

"I was followed…the problem was taken care of, though," she replied easily, attempting to wave him off as she passed him one of the packs. He glared at her in a way that promised that they were not through discussing her fight and she tossed the second pack to Victor, who had remained lounged against one of the large, tropical trees during her arrival, eyeing her with predatory amusement. She felt Logan's grip slacken on her shoulders as she refused to divulge further details and slid from his grip, making her way over to where Victor sat and where Logan had previously been sitting.

"You said things have been changing?" The larger man prompted lazily, his flared nostrils the only sign that she reeked of the scent of blood. He licked his lips briefly, though from the scent or just to wet them she wasn't sure as she got a glimpse of his longer-than-normal canines.

"Err…yeah," she started clumsily, watching Logan toss his pack down and sit. "How was it, getting out of there?" She replied, stalling for a moment. Logan simply glared and made a gesture for her to get on with it. She sighed and shifted a bit, attempting to get comfortable. "Stryker has…gone a bit off the deep end." Both men simply stared at her questioningly. "He's started experiments on the mutants around base," she continued, starting in surprise when Logan snorted and made himself comfortable.

"Stryker doesn't have it in him to do something like that, he's more suited to a desk," Logan replied in a manner that suggested the topic was closed.

She gave a strangled sound and sat up on her knees, glaring at Logan, "You haven't been around for two months, how would you know?"

"He's right kid, why would he go off the deep end?" Victor cut in, eyeing the girl critically, not believing the idea either.

"His son is a mutant," she replied. When this failed to get the response she wanted she growled, raking her fingers through the hair that was quickly falling loose of her ponytail. "He didn't mind having us around base before, but when his son was 'diagnosed' a few days after you left, he went nuts. Apparently the kid's been causing Stryker and his wife to have hallucinations and stuff. He shipped him off to some school in New York, but a week later the guy that runs it tried to explain to him that he can't cure the kid, since mutation isn't a disease…Stryker didn't like that answer and took Jason home." She paused for a moment, frustrated at the two men simply looked amused and shocked to varying degrees.

"His wife killed herself a month ago," she dropped one of her last larger bombs, and finally saw their amused expressions crack and slide more into the shocked range. "She apparently took a drill to her temple to try to bore out the images he was projecting into her mind," she continued, shivering a bit. "Jason's been under lock-down on base since, and Stryker has become obsessed with experimentation…finding a cure and whatnot. He volunteered three of the mutants on base for the project as guinea pigs, and had 15 civilian mutants rounded up." She gave a bitter smile as their expressions continued on to more extremes of grimness and shock, "I suppose it's lucky that he had their families killed in the process, since none of the 15 survived. Apparently the 'treatments' are a bit hard on the body, they can't heal from it fast enough to survive more than a day or two after."

"You said he volunteered some of the mutants on base. Who?" Logan replied after a moment, his mind racing through all the other mutants on base. Adria quickly listed off two of the mutants that had joined up in the same company that she had. Logan and Victor exchanged glances, faces set to varying levels of serious and grim now.

"One of them had a healing ability like you guys, and he was the first to survive after the initial 15 died, but instead of the treatment curing him, it just sort of…re-mutated him. Changed what his abilities are. They figured out that their subjects needed the ability to quick-heal to survive, so they synthesized the mutation that gave him the ability and passed it on to the remaining subjects with a range of success. At least they survived," she finished and shifted how she sat on her knees.

Logan shook his head in dazed amazement, the look of shock slowly fading, "I still can't believe he'd have it in him…" Adria looked up at him in sympathy, her attention being drawn to Victor as the large man spoke again.

"You said he picked three people on base to pick on, but you only named two. Who's the third?" Adria nearly swore under her breath, dropping her head a bit as Victor broached the subject she had hoped to avoid as long as possible.

"The blood on my shirt is mine…the guy that followed me out of the camp shot me a couple of times," she said instead, not daring to look up at either of them as she continued to bow her head, being able to picture quite clearly the look of growing anger and concern that would fill Logan's face.

"But you didn't get the healing ability from your Pops, so how bad are you hurt?" Victor prompted bluntly. Why couldn't the brat just speak straight? No use in beating around the bush over something that was obviously important. Victor glared at her bowed head, sitting up a bit more, the scent of the blood on her shirt becoming stronger now that she wasn't moving around.

Adria dared a peek up at the intimidating, feral man, though she didn't even consider looking at Logan at the moment, "I'm not hurt much…because they gave me the ability when they tried the treatment on me." The speed with which Logan shot to his feet in a fury, impaling all three of the bone-claws on one of his hand into the nearest tree caused Adria to flinch backward so strongly off of her knees that she landed on her butt. She quickly scooted back and got to her feet, backing away a few feet. Victor simply looked bored as he watched Logan, though she knew that he could spring up just as quickly if need be. Even had Logan turned on the larger man in his rage, he wouldn't have done much damage. That was what made watching them spar in training so impressive.

Adria wasn't nearly so impressed now though, as Logan pulled the claws from the tree and turned to face her, causing her to cringe back more, her back coming flush against the side of the jeep. Normally she wouldn't be afraid of what he could do, but then she was rarely around him when he was in a rage. In fact she made a point to not be. As Logan made his way toward her Victor climbed to his feet behind him, presumably in case he needed to intercept the shorter man. Adria kept her eyes locked on Logan and didn't give the larger man another thought; she didn't even know if Victor WOULD intercept if the need arose, his entertainment tastes running along the more brutal and vicious side of things. Without even consciously thinking about it, she threw up her hands in front of her face in a defensive posture, a ten-foot wall of flames erupting from the ground between them.

The wall of fire's sudden appearance caused Logan to stop in his tracks, his rage interrupted. Adria took a quick breath, glad to see that he hadn't fully gone into berserker-mode (no amount of fire would have stopped him if he had), and that he was simply pissed beyond belief. With her lapse in concentration, the fire wall disappeared and she stood, back to the side of her jeep, staring at the panting man as he fought to regain control of himself, his claws retracting.

When she was sure that he wouldn't fly off the handle again, namely when Victor leaned lazily against the tree he had been sitting against, she opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off by Logan.

"But you're not…you don't control fire…You're a telekinetic," he muttered, fighting to create a coherent thought as he eyed her. She smiled weakly and put her hands up in a "who knows?" gesture.

"Like I said, a lot has changed in the two months that you've been gone. The treatment, as with everyone else, didn't cure me. It rearranged my abilities. Apparently even normal-born pyrokinetics can't normally just create fire and combust anything they want, but I can…it caught Stryker's attention. Now he's working on more than just a cure, that's what I wanted to warn you about. He's now also trying to make some kind of super-soldier, and with your healing ability," here she paused to give both of them a pointed look, "You may be on his list. You so sure he's not capable of it now?" She watched them both tensely, taking a steadying breath as quiet descended between the three.

After a moment, Logan stepped closer and was glad that she didn't flinch from him. He raised a hand and cupped it under her chin, making sure that she was looking at him, "I don't want you going back. Go into hiding, I'll find you when it's safe. Just don't go to your mom's, they might--"

"Logan! I'm not gonna hide from this…that'll really make Stryker go nutso. I'll be alright, especially now that I can heal better than I could before. Anyway, I need to practice this pyro thing a bit more; it's still out of my control a lot and takes a lot more concentration than the telekinesis did." She locked eyes with Logan, a silent battle of wills going on between them.

Had she looked over his shoulder at Victor, she would have seen a sneer on his face as he turned away from the touching scene, though he refrained from saying anything. He honestly thought Logan's idea was the coward's way out, and didn't understand his partner's reasoning in wanting the kid to go into hiding; but he'd certainly let him know about it later. At least the brat had some sense; this was what they DID, no matter what happened. At least now she can do something more dangerous than make books and fruit fly at people, he though derisively.

Logan frowned and gave a frustrated growl under his breath, releasing her chin, "Fine…I don't like it, but I can't make you go. But the moment things go bad, I want you out…you might be able to heal, but I can tell you're still hurt from today. You can't take as much as we can." She lifted her chin and nodded, only vaguely stung from the reminder that she wasn't nearly as good at what they did as Logan or Victor was, in any capacity.

"Alright dad, we have a deal."