This is a repost of the story that the NC-17 Purge wiped off of FF.Net. It's rating has been changed to R, but if there are any NC-17 scene's in this, I'll be sure to inform you before you read them.
Responding to CajunClaws' challenge, I present,
The Feral Situation
Chapter 1
Discoveries in the Snow
It started off the way it always did. The guards came up to the bars of the cell, one of them tossed a gas grenade in and another hit the force shield around the cage to stop the gas flowing out to them. A few minutes later, the subject was fast asleep, with no idea what was about to happen. Not that the subject would have been able to do anything, in any case. But this time, the subject wasn't headed to one of the sub genetic labs for DNA upgrades. This time it was something more.
"She's not a bad looker, hey?"
"Are you nuts? She's a mutant freak, and dangerous. She'd kill ya before she'd let ya pound 'er." The guards were quieted by the look from one of the science technicians who was hauling the unconscious girl onto a gurney.
With a full contingent of guards, twelve in all, the three sci-techs wheeled the subject down the halls to the lab where the final experiments would take place, before they took the vital but expensive measures of having the girls memories altered.
Even as they set the girl up in the sensory depravation the hired telepath stepped into the lab and took a good look at the girl's mind.
"Well Corlla?"
Corlla the mercenary telepath turned and nodded to her employer.
"I can do it, but it's going to cost you another thirty thousand. That girl has impressive shields and I'm going to be exhausted by the time I punch through them. If you want me to rewrite her memories into something sensible and useable, it won't be easy."
"We are well aware of this. And we expected as much from you. We are prepared to offer you an extra fifty thousand, if you do a very, very good job. We have no wish to lose this one, with or without memories. Twenty-five now, the other half when the job is done and we are convinced. This is, of course, on top of your normal fee."
"You're willing to pay a hundred and fifty for this girl? May I ask why?"
"Confidential. We are willing to tell you that this girl is a mutant of great potential power. And, as you can no doubt tell, her psychic shields are a great asset. We do not wish you to do them too much damage."
Corlla nodded and turned back to look at the girl who was floating in the large tank of electrolyte liquid.
"I'll start the process while you bond the metal. It will be much easier now, then when she's recovered."
"Very well." The man in the sleek black suit nodded and walked back out the door. He wasn't stupid enough to stay here during the bonding process. After what had happened last time…
No. No one would be stupid enough to stay there.
It was only a slight shift in the darkness that woke her. She didn't know why she was trained so highly to respond to these shifts, but she knew it was essential to keep that training sharp.
As soon as the sun crested the horizon, she was up and moving. There was something behind her that was dangerous to her, and she had to get away from it. She was moving her den. Some place…other then here.
She knew, instinctively, that she had to go South. She had to cross the two-legger boarder.
"Canada. Americaaarrrrgggg…" The word was half a growl, half a purr. Home, the word said. Pack lands her instincts added. Huge human cities, the thinking part of her brain spoke up and very suddenly got the attention of every other part of her mind.
'Humans. Humans did this to me. I am human. Humans attacked me. I am human…'
A shift in the wind stopped that particular train of thought. She could smell an intruder, very faintly, but there. A single thought in her mind said that she was the intruder, and she had to move before the territory owner came looking for her. The scent was male. A bachelor mountain lion, perhaps looking for a mate? No, there was something far more human about it then animal, though the animal was definitely there too.
'Like me. I am human. I am animal.' A thought shifted, and underneath that thought, she could feel a memory, trying hard to get to the surface.
"I'm more animal then human sometimes, just a little more. Sometimes, that ain't such a bad thing, kid. Sometimes it's the worst thing in the world."
"Like that matters to me. Yer always just Wolvie, that's enough."
She grunted slightly. That hadn't been a memory she'd been expecting. The memories she had at the moment were all of pain, and chemicals, and humans. The man in this memory really was as much animal as she was. Now. That girl in her memory. That had been her…
Something shifted nearby, and a small ground finch flew up a hundred meters or so away. She raised her nose and sniffed.
The male was close. Very close. He was watching her. There was confusion in his scent, and wariness…but not as much hostility as she had expected.
She could hear him now. There was breathing nearby, trying to match hers so as to stay quiet, but she knew how to mix her breathing so she could hear things.
She shifted around and crouched expectantly. Crouching behind her, the large human-like creature was watching her with a rather stunned expression.
"Frail?" She shifted back a bit. She understood the word, and what it meant. Weak, breakable. She wasn't. No one would break her. No one. Especially not some upstart little feral. "Kid?" She wasn't a kitten. Why was this creature treating her like they should know each other? "Jubilee?"
Her mind blanked out completely, and her legs collapsed so she fell to her knees.
Jubilee. Of course…she was Jubilee. Jubilation Lee to be exact…and this man…this human in front of her was…Creed? Enemy? No. There was no hostility. Just…confusion in his scent. A memory shifted aside, and she knew she'd fought him before. She knew his moves. She knew he was unpredictable. She knew he knew who she was. That made him…ally potential.
"C-Creed?"
"Damn. So the rumours were right. They gotcha." He stood up very slowly, and calmly extended a hand to her. "Jubilee, girl, do ya know who I am?" The words mixed around a bit, then her mind made sense of them and she shrugged. The human gesture set of a small chain reaction of memories.
"Will she live through this?" The sci-tech shrugged and turned to the man in the black suit, and the woman with the long yellow blonde hair.
"Depends on her, sir. And on how hard the telepath hits her. We gave her more drugs then with the other experiments, but then, her healing factor is new, and we don't know how strong it is yet."
"Understandable, of course. Finish the process then, Corlla. I want her inducted and ready for sale by this time next week."
Jubilee, since that was apparently who she was, grunted again and then snarled up at Creed as she too stood to her full hight. Which, annoyingly enough, was half a head shorter then his. She blinked when she realised this was wrong. She should have been at least a full foot and more shorter then the tall feral. Now she stood slightly taller then Wolvie would have been.
"Wolvie. Where…Creed? Wolvie? Kill them." That last came at the sudden memory of two technicians who had been discussing the Wolverine and how his time with the program differed from hers.
"Easy kid…where? Where are They?" No need for him to ask who.
Jubilee patiently shifted through her memories, only partially paying attention to the man in front of her. There were a lot of memories of blood, and even more of burning smells and cooked flesh. Whoops. The Professor wasn't going to like that. Oh…the Professor…at least her memories were starting to work again.
"Dead. Killed 'em. Professor? Please?" Words were hard coming, but she said what she considered important. Creed had never heard her use the word please on him. It would have an effect.
"Sure kid. I got a jeep not to far from here. You gonna keep a hold of yourself on the ride? Don't wanna handle a pyrotechnic feral who ain't quite there yet."
She thought about it for some minutes, and he patiently waited. He understood that she needed to think. Most animals wouldn't willingly walk into something unknown without thinking hard first.
"Food?" Creed nodded, and he pulled the rough, battered old bag from his shoulders. She hadn't even realised he'd been carrying it. With slow movements, as slow as everything else he did…she realised he didn't want to set her off by startling her, he pulled a canteen and some travel rations out. Laying them on the ground in front of him, he backed off and sat down on a near by log, waiting for her to finish the food inspection.
With a last, satisfied sniff, she wolfed down the travel rations, consisting of jerky, nuts, dried fruit and some chocolate, and then took a small sip of the water.
The chocolate sparked more memories, and she felt her human-self coming to the fore.
"Sabertooth? Why…you not…trying to kill me?" The sentence was said in between shovelling more food in and drinking.
"Curiosity. You know me now?"
"Sorta. Hard ta…remember. Telepath. Did the hokey pokey with my mind." She considered everything she currently knew…realised that the only things she really remembered from before he started triggering memories were what happened in the labs, and that she'd escaped before the 'path had done more then wipe her memories. "Nothin' false. Just…memory wipe. Painful. Need tha Prof." She smiled at the sceptical look on his face and then snarled when she felt her lips pull against her fangs. She shouldn't have fangs. 'Least, she didn't think she should have them.
"Won't freak…jus'…keep me way from humans. 'Less ya wanna see a slaughter." She looked at him and considered what she had just said. "Then again, maybe I should walk. Considerin' you an' all. Not a good influence in my state of mind, huh 'Tooth?"
"Nah. I' been huntin' them damn scientists for months now. If ya left any of 'em alive, they'll come after you; an' I wanna be there. 'Sides yer a week away from the boarder, the way you were going. Mountain range between here an' there." Jubilee sighed, sniffed, cocked her head to listen and then nodded.
"I behave, you behave. Xavier pays you. 'Kay?"
"Sounds good. 'Sides, bringin' you home might just rouse the runt. Haven't had a good fight with him for ages."
"He looked for me?"
"Went insane lookin' for ya…bout two months ago. How long they had ya?"
"Dunno. Been awhile. Two…three months, judging by what I remember. Maybe more. Maybe less. Can we go now? I'm kinda cold." Considering she was standing ankle deep in snow, had spent the last night in a cave, and wore only a jumpsuit she had stolen from one of the locker rooms on her way out of the compound, that was an understatement. She'd already gone through four lots of frostbite in her toes, which her healing factor had thankfully taken care of.
He took a careful step toward her and then gestured behind her.
"That way. Want me ta go first?" He was obviously being wary of whatever telepathically induced training the mercenary 'path had given her. She shrugged and turned.
"Don't care. My head hurts. Everything hurts. I need to cool it. How far away is your jeep, dude?"
"A mile. Cabin on the bottom ridge of that hill range over there. The jeep is a mile east of there. I'll meet you at the jeep. Gotta go get some clothes and money and things."
"'Kay." She was already off and running.
Little more then another hour later she was snuggled up on the back seat of the jeep, in one of Creed's old, muchly used blankets, listening as her memories came through bit by bit. Since it was Creed she was with, it was her memories of Creed that came first.
"Sorry 'bout that whole 'blowing a hole in your torso' thing, just by the way." The reference was to a fairly new memory. Creed had been in New York for something, and had run into the ladies on their shopping spree. Rogue, M, Husk and Jean had distracted him, while Storm and Jubilee had set up to blast him. It had been a pretty big blast.
"S'okay. Yer memories coming back then?"
"Slowly. Very, very slowly. I remember they snatched me from the Mass Academy. And they did a lot of weird…oh shit." Creed pulled the jeep over to one side of the dirt track that served as a road up there and turned to look at her. She was looking at her shaking hands.
"Frail?" Jubilee didn't take her eyes away from her hands. Very slowly she lowed the left one and focused on the right. Another memory surfaced.
"So how do ya get 'em to come out?" Jubilee bounced over a couch to sit beside the Wolverine. He was looking at his hands and considering the question.
"There's a muscle, just there, kid, that flexes when you get angry or tense." He pointed along one side of his right arm. "I flex that and they pop. I relax it, and they go back in."
Jubilee carefully, slowly flexed that little muscle, and flinched as three eight inch adamantium claws popped out of her knuckles. Creed growled in surprise.
"Ahh…okay, ow."