Title: Who Let the Dog Out?
Special thanks& Credits:
Special thanks to my beta's Jeanniebird and imsuchanut whose close collaboration made this fiction possible.
0000~R~0000
They never had gotten off to a good start. No, it was actually safe to say Rogue harboured a certain hate for the creature she had been partnered with. A partnership hatched in the name of this new X-men and government collaboration. A great step for mutants everywhere toward peaceful coexistence, and Rogue truly was glad. No; more than that. She would have thought she would do anything to make this dream come true.
But by now… Hell, if it wasn't for the fact that Professor Xavier had cast this as her one great chance to have that life-long dream for peace come true, Rogue would have vetoed this whole project after their initial 'test'.
And - be honest - what mutant in his right mind would consider a partnership with the old Weapons program at all? A program that until recently had been at the forefront of mutant persecution? Rogue had been little more than a little girl when the media exposed the program. She had not even been aware of her mutant genes, but even with the government playing it off low-key she had felt a little of the horrors in tow. No; Rogue had no love for these people. And she certainly would not have agreed to become one half of one of their anti-terrorist strike team. Still, even excusing all this, had anyone else but Xavier asked, Rogue would never have agreed with the other half of her strike-team: the Weapon's program most prized and coveted mass-murdering mutant wolf: Weapon-X.
Why did she dislike this creature so?
Maybe it was because their first meeting consisted of Rogue having to get voluntarily stabbed -an ordeal she could describe only as a less than pleasant experience. She had had to walk up to a man-sized black crate that hissed and bounced, and hold her arm still over the single hole in that crate. While fully aware of the fact of what was to come.
Yes; perhaps Rogue's dislike for Weapon-X was born then. For the when the creature had stabbed her, she had indeed been healed by its mutant powers. But a nasty something else took a hold of her too; likely the psyche of this beast. Rogue had no experience with her mutant power on animals; no previous encounter to compare this with. Weapon-X's invasion of Rogue's had been unnervingly close to a human's though, only differentiating in providing s more violent imagery, interspersed with sullen silences. Oh; and let's not forget the sensory overload. Sounds and smells and too-bright a colors vying for her attention every waking moment. Not that the nights were that much better. Despite the shortage in vocabulary, the part of Weapon-X in Rogue had left her with confusing dreams and a nasty temper for weeks.
But Rogue's stab-wound had closed instantly thanks to the creature's healing power. And thus, despite the young X-woman's misgivings, the experiment had been deemed a success.
Of course, there was more. It was possible Rogue's dislike had sprung from their second meeting, when the thing's caretakers had introduced her canine partner as the greatest piece of weapon-engineering since the A-bomb.
But Rogue liked to believe she was not a person set on prejudice, and so she hoped that her hatred stemmed from their first actual work together. When they'd let the creature off its leash, and it had loped off right into a throng of people, and started cutting into mutant terrorists with an air of total glee.
She was not at all sure how none of the hostages involved had gotten killed in that exchange. The caretakers had gone on about something called designated civilians and programming that was supposed to keep Weapon-X in line. But personally she was not sure how it could have told the difference with all the blood and screaming and total panic. She supposed any civilian in such a situation would likely runoff screaming, so maybe Weapon-X's strategy just meant 'stir up the beehive and see what fights back.' Still, it didn't sound like a solid and safe strategy to her.
Rogue had asked the Weapons's employees to keep the beast in line better next time, lest there would be any more unnecessary deaths. They had said they would try. A caretaker called Jake had made an effort, whispering into the creature's ear for at least fifteen minutes before releasing it. And honestly, it had seemed calm and collected. Perhaps even understanding when Jake had repeated, again and again, that safety of the hostages was prime objective.
But when Jake cut it lose the creature turned, sprinted, and buried its claws in human flesh without a backward glance.
Jake had only shrugged, no more than a little apologetic. "It does that. But we're working on it."
Which was nice and all to know, but didn't help any of the people who had owned the literal mine-field of body-parts Rogue needed to traverse to join up with the beast again. Had these people even been with the terrorists? It was impossible to tell; most of these bodies mauled beyond recognition. But Rogue doubted Weapon-X had the faculties to understand a concept like covering itself against law-suits. It probably just enjoyed the mindless slaughter.
Why ever the weapon had done it, his antics had now again left her with quite a few traumatized civilians that needed to be coaxed out of hiding places amongst the rubble. Rogue sighed, then stretched out a gloved hand to the young woman that had crawled under a slab of broken concrete in the hope of escaping the massacre. This terrorist hide-out had hardly been in good condition before Weapon-X had come slashing though men and structure alike, but now there was little left of either.
The hiding woman was understandably convinced she would be next to join indistinct heaps of ruin, and was this far not reacting to Rogue's words of encouragement. Instead, her eyes were fixed on a point behind the young X-man, terror drawing her irises black. A rhythmic squirting noise came from the scene the woman could not draw away from, and Rogue knew she would have to address that macabre sight now. If she did not, she might well be stuck here till night-fall.
Her canine partner sat on his haunches, the dark fur that covered him wet with blood. Weapon-X had one of the terrorists in one claw, keeping what the upper body propped up: a head lolling in a disquieting manner, stuck to a pair of legs by little more than skin by now. Weapon-X had one metal claw unsheathed, and every second beat it drove those two-foot knives into the corpse with precise, almost robotic punches.
"Hey, doggie!" Rogue addressed the thing, because the care-takers had assured her it had been augmented enough to understand simple speech. "The order was use deadly force when necessary. Not mangle and debase every kill you make."
Weapon-X turned its hairy head towards her, cocking it to the side. But his clawed fist kept up its rhythmic punching; long metal claws burying into flesh time and time again.
"Do you really think your commander will be glad when he finds out he has to have blood scraped off every wall?"
Weapon-X finally did stop his meat-cutting, as if actually processing that. Then, his teeth barred in an animal's equivalent of a grin as he grabbed the corpse's head and bobbed it up and down in a parody of a happy nod.
Disgusted, Rogue turned away from the spectacle that was Weapon-X: her new partner!
"Sick animal."
0000~W~0000
Hello. Can ya guess who I am? That's right. I am the Big Bad Wolf. Call me Weapon-X, or if ya have to be familiar, Wolverine. I am the boogie-man from your dreams, the monster under your bed. With Claws. And once I come for ya, you won't have to worry about nightmares ever again.
I know what I am; I've known for as long as I can remember. This is my second life, I'm aware. But in that life before...Well, I expect I knew back then too.
I suppose you think I'm being melodramatic? Or at least - due to the fact that I am covered, again, in the blood of my enemies - homicidal. But I am a creature born of pain, death, and despair. As such I think I am allowed this small transgression.
My birth?
The weird thing about pain - true, honest, pure pain-, is that it is all-encompassing. It was all I had room for; so much so that I was not even a concept I could understand. There simply was no such thing as an I. Nor a here, not there. No sounds nor sights nor smells, nor the absence of them. I didn't even have a concept of time then. I only knew that there was pain, and it was lessening. That pain was confined now, pulsing inside my bones, and as terrible as it was, at least it no longer filled my every sense.
Now, you might think this lessening of pain would've been a good thing. Yet for me, at the time, it was not. It gave me consciousness to do something else but suffer: I panicked.
There was actually enough to panic over. I was submerged in liquid, inside a constricted, closed-off tank that did not even grant me the space to raise my arms. There were hoses stuck into me everywhere—though the one that abhorred me most was the one running down my throat. Oh, did I mention that at this point something snaked down inside the flesh of my arms, and then finally popped through my knuckles' flesh in the form of two-times-three sets of knives?
Yeah; panic might have been too light a word.
Needless to say a glass tank provided no obstacle to an enraged beast wielding six two-foot blades. Neither did the scientists and doctors that had been standing over my liquid-filled coffin. Or mother's womb; they were both the same thing for me, it turned out. For I might have been born there, someone else came there to die.
Now, I had just about finished the last of the squashies—those men and women so engrossed in the subjects of their learning they had never bothered to even try and learn basic self-defense - when all the monitors around me blared to life. It was Stryker. My Commander. Or boss. Or Lord and Saviour. Whatever he likes, actually; though I guess at the time I didn't know it.
Started cussing me out; warned me he'd have my head if I broke our deal now. Didn't know what he was talking about o' course, so I started tearing into the damn television tubes. There were a lot of them though, and the image upon them changed soon.
The guy that looked out from all those screens now – from an obvious recording – is the guy that actually fucked me over. He explained as much in a halting, over-conscious way; had the gall to apologize for it. I'd have liked to rip that bastard's face off, as I had done with those scientists. But that particular face staring at me now was the only one that meant anything to me at that point. It was the face I had seen reflect back at me first, when I woke up in that claustrophobic tank. The face was my own.
Yes; it was right there that I knew despair.
Don't you dare feel sorry for me! Not yet, at least. It wasn't all that bad, really. Even if that tape has been played back to me too many times for me to forget - And that's saying something as my first years at the Weapons program are little more than a hole-riddled blur. Still, life was simple back then. I got orders, and I obeyed them. Those orders usually contained some excuse for me to sink my claws into living meat, and at the time that was all I had room to care about.
No, my story is actually 'bout to get a lot worse.
Mother-fucking Green-Peace showed up. Can you believe it? Green-Peace. They've pretty much infiltrated the whole Weapons program. Merged with some Mutant's rights group to do it too.
Whatever.
They started freeing mutants that were obviously human. All sorts of legislators showed up, quoting from all sorts of human rights bills. Pretty much cleared the whole base o' anything that could talk. Suppose I should consider myself lucky I didn't do much o' that at the time. Later animal welfare showed up as well, took a lot of the tamer lab-animals with 'm.
They took me too, at one point. Put me in a fenced piece a forest, kept me fed well enough and stayed out of my way. First few weeks of coherent stuff I remember. I wouldn't have minded staying there, even with the place boring and short on excuses for slaughter.
Until I got sick.
Fur started shedding, got these nasty muscle cramps. Fever and the shakes and I couldn't even keep my dinner down. Not that I was hungry anymore. Green-Peace mother-fuckers tried to set their vets on me. But I wasn't feeling much cooperative, and it's near impossible to tranc me, so they gave up eventually. In the end, they decided to take me back home.
Wasn't even sure how I felt about that, at the time. Confused, mostly. Never got sick before. With how my body works, I'd have thought it impossible. Whatever the doctors gave me on home-coming cleared my system fast enough though. So I guess I wasn't really sick. Or, maybe it's the kind of disease that gets treated, but not cured. Because I get my weekly shots now - against adamantium poisoning, apparently.
Stryker came ta my cell, shortly after. Explained a little more o' why I gone and agree with his terms so readily the first time. Can't help but shake the feeling he's fucking me over—somewhere. But that could just be wishful thinking, because it all adds up too well with the story the previous - less-hairy - me hinted at in that tape. Apparently, I got a double murder charge hanging over me; court-martial an' everything, death-penalty just about assured. Guess that's why I've promised these creeps fifty years o' my life. By the time I get outta here, no one will be looking for the old me.
I also look different enough. Then again, I might have to fix that, if I ever want to return to society. I look more like a bloody Australian Shepherd then a human being. Fuck, did I used to shave every hour or something?
Either way, the guy lined up for death row will not be connected to me in any manner by the time I get outta here. If I ever get outta here. I'm not stupid. I know I can't trust Stryker; hell, he's with the government!
Still, rather fight the devil I know then the devil unknown I guess. Not that I'd be much looking forward to the attempted executions awaiting me if the cops ever do get me. Lethal injections are a bitch. Don't ask me how I know that, because I don't. Stryker came up with the too vivid telling o' what would happen to me. The story woulda given me nightmares, if it wasn't for… well, that's a tale for another day I'd say.
Anyway, I had to make another deal then. Hide that I could talk; pretend to be an animal. It wasn't that hard, really.
Not at first.
But it's getting harder.
Apparently, Green-Peace and those o' a same mind have quite a different idea on what an animal is then good Commander Stryker. And how they should be treated. Do you get what I am saying? No? Think Royal fucking Canine Schnauzer. Crazies turned my bloody pen into some kinda inside garden. With trees and everything. Got me a cave with a mattress, a little pool wi' fresh water, and a tape playing bird noises in the background for ambiance. I'm now living in the wolf-equivalent of a five-star hotel.
I told ya it was awful.
It's easy to snarl and posture at guys wielding electric rods at you. It's quite a different thing when they're offering you stake and a walk in the park. I can't actually attack my handlers... They did something to me there. But it used to be those bastards for hire didn't care, or din' really believe all that conditioning worked for sure. These new guys… I bet they'd put their head in the mouth of a life-orca if its care-taker said it was okay. And they keep telling each other it's all fine and dandy. The lot o' them are driving me mental.
It's disheartening, really. No matter how bad o' a blood-bath I leave on my missions, I just can get 'm to be scared o' me!
And now, bloody government seems to be agreeing with those numb-skulls. Put me on a program. Working with other mutants. Not the type on a leash though. Not the type to go tearing through opponents either. And they put the other mutant in charge. Her, a freaking girl. Can you believe that?
Well, I guess that's a good thing, or I'd have proof they already knew I'm a fraud. I'm supposed to be an over-grown mutt after all. All the same, the bitch ain't nothing but trouble; talks to me like a regular human being half the time, messes up my kill-ratio with useless non-violence commands the other. I don't think she likes me either. Bet she'd be happy to rat on me if I give her even one reason to suspect. And that's only a matter of time, with the way she's been observing me and getting way too close an personal all o' the time.
This is completely fucking up my cover. Any more o' this, and I might as well walk up the police and give myself up. Anyway, how many lethal injections would they give a guy, before they realize it ain't working..?
Ah shucks, just don't have the guts to find out.
I need to fuck this up; be that Big Bad Wolf. Do something so nasty this entire program gets cancelled. I can't hold my cover like this. Not to mention, Stryker don't like this much at all. So I have to end it.
I should go and get the girl killed, or something. Her own fault, I say. A kid showing up on a battle-field, virtually unprepared and untrained. This shit would have gotten her killed soon enough anyway. I mean, what are her superiors thinking? Might be doing her a favour, if I make it quick. Fuck it.
Killing her would do it. – and don't go thinking I wouldn't, just cause she'd a kid. It 'course she's got special Handler Status; that means take her orders, an no hurting. Worse than bloody Civilian Status. At least I can ignore them. And scare 'm. Bad.
But I'm already scaring civilians; and disgusting her. She's also too stupid to fear me though, so it's not enough. Not enough to get this project aborted, and my own identity back into safe obscurity.
I need to fuck this up; I need to be that Big Bad Wolf.
0000
Hey dear all, this is meant as the first chapter in a multi-chapter piece. Au, I know.
I hope you enjoyed, and do let me know if you do (that means review). Because it makes me and my betas happy to hear from you!