X-Men: A New Wolverine

My name is Jared. But most people call me "a new Wolverine". They didn't always. For a long time, I was just "Pipsqueak" or "Runt". No one took me seriously. Partly because I was scrawny for my age, and partly because I grew up in a dog crate. But they learned. They learned very quickly, don't mess with Jared. Of course, at that point they had started calling me a new Wolverine because, well... I'm getting there. Ah, never mind. I'll just tell you the whole story from the beginning and let you decide for yourself why it is they called me "a new Wolverine".

It was dark out. The guards hated the dark. It meant anything could be coming at them and they wouldn't know until it was right on top of them... and then it would be too late. They knew that much, at least. They had heard stories from the older guards.

The ones that had survived.

Everyone knew this was a dangerous job. Everyone knew there was a chance that they would not be going home the next morning. They knew there was that chance that they would never see their families again... if they had any family left. This job defined the word danger.

What were they doing, you ask?

You'll see. You will see.

"70592." The voice was bored.

"Here.

"70593."

"Here."

"70594."

Silence.

"70594."

Again, silence.

"70594!"

"Dead." The teenage boy had a grin.

"Next time you don't answer I'll send you to the brig. You know what they do to your kind there."

The boy didn't even blink. "And they'll send me back within the hour. Go ahead. You might even get an award for being the only one tough enough to deal with me."

"Shut up! Just shut your mouth and be quiet!"

The man stomped from the room.

The boy looked around the room."Well, it worked. If I annoy him, he doesn't get to you guys behind me. That gives you the whole night to run and get help."

"but who would help us?" The tiny girl looked frightened.

"I'm still workin' on that, Mace, still workin' on that. But don't worry. I'll think of somethin'."

"I know. I'm just scared is all."

"We're all scared, Mace. But don't worry. We'll get out."

"Williams, make sure you lock those doors tight. I don't want anyone to escape. If what we're doing gets out..."

"Stryker, nobody's getting out. Those kids are to dumb to come up with an escape plan. Even if they did, they'd never get away. Nobody's ever gotten away from here. Security's too tight."

"Weapon X did."

"Well, yeah, but... but that was Weapon X. None of these brats even compare to him!"

"Even so..."

"Look, if it makes you feel better, I'll lock the doors very carefully tonight, okay? Now will you calm down?"

Stryker simply gave the guard a glare before he walked away, his stride shortened by his limp.

A limp that had come from too much walking.

"YAAAGH!"

Wolverine screamed as his claws dug deeply into the metal skin of a Sentinel. This might only be the Danger Room, but it sure was a workout, even for him.

"Logan!"

Wolverine paused in killing the Sentinel long enough to listen to Cyclops.

"We just found a guy outside, about ten minutes ago. Says he's come from Canada and needs the X-Men." Cyclops swallowed hard before he continued. "He... he said he escaped from a Weapon X facility."

"What?" The instant the word was out of his mouth, Logan was pushing his way past Cyclops, on his way to the hangar.

"Where are you going?"

Logan stopped, but barely turned as he answered.

"I'm gonna go show those monsters that you don't mess with mutants."

Cyclops only stared, his mouth slightly open, as Wolverine kept walking.

"You... you don't even know where you're going!"

"Then I'll sniff 'em out."

"You have no idea what you're going up against!"

"I'll be fine."

"You can't just abandon the team!"

At this, Logan stopped and sighed. "Then what're you waitin' for? Get on the jet. Don't care if you come or not, I'm goin'. You comin', or what?"

The people in the room they had walked into all watched to see what his decision would be.

Finally, Scott sighed and said,"All right, all right! Grab your costumes, team, we're going to Canada."

Someone groaned. Someone cheered. Everyone went to grab their costumes.

They met on the plane.

"Wolverine? Why aren't you wearing your costume?" Kitty looked at him with curious eyes.

Logan chuckled. "'Cause they've seen me like this. And I want them to remember me." That was the end of the conversation. For the entire flight.

Everyone watched as two guards carried the boy into the room, then roughly threw him into his cage. Stryker watched the fear in their eyes.

"You see? This is what happens to rebels who smart mouth the supervisors. The next one gets a week, no, two weeks in the correction area. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yeah, clear as mud," wheezed the boy who had just been brought in.

Stryker glared at the boy, yet he was amazed at the kid's spunk. Not many people dared be stupid enough to get into the correction area, or the brig, as the guards called it, but nobody was stupid or brave enough to talk back to him right after they got back from it. Few people could withstand the beatings this boy had been through. He was sure if this kid went through it again any time soon, he would die. But... maybe not.

Stryker pulled the leader of splicing DNA aside in the hallway.

"Listen. You know that kid with the smart mouth?"

The Chinese man looked at him, looked down, then nodded as he looked back at Stryker.

"Well, I want adamantium in him, pronto. I also want you to splice Weapon X's DNA into his. Get them as much alike as you can. I want him to have the claws, the adamantium, the healing factor, the heightened senses, everything. And I want this done tomorrow."

The younger man looked worried."But he just came from the correction area! When we fused adamantium onto Weapon X, he was fully healed and not wounded in any way, and he STILL almost died. This boy does not have a healing factor. If we try to fuse adamantium to his bones, he will surely die. You cannot expect this madness to come of anything!"

"Hey, if he dies, he's just another dead mutie. But if he lives, think about it! We could have another Weapon X! And this one's younger, so we could defineatly break him and make him do what we want him to!"

The man seemed uneasy. "I... I do not know. It's risky. And the people who take the bodies are getting curious as to how we are getting so many of them."

"Then give them a check with lots of zeros and tell them we 're making a donation and would love to keep using their services. They'll back off. Don't worry about that. You worry about making sure that boy survives the adamantium enhancement process. After that, you can take a nice, looooong vacation far away from here, and not think about work for a couple months, okay? Now, I want you to go work on it, make sure there's a way to make him survive this. Then, I want you to go home and get some rest. Tomorrow's a big day, Chi. A big day."

Beast looked back to tell the team they were almost there only to find that they were all asleep.

Except Logan. He seemed restless, uneasy.

"You're nervous about this, aren't you?"

Logan looked up, surprised at the voice, then looked back down at the floor. "Yeah. I hate Weapon X. Hate to think 'bout what they're doin' to mutants."

"You know, Logan, they might actually be doing legitimate research there now. They could be run by new people who don't hate mutants. Maybe they're trying to help them now."

"You 'member who turned you into a beast?"

"Point taken."

The rest of the ride was silent.

The room was filled with tension as Wong Chi made the last few adjustments to the machine that would either save Jared's live, and turn him into one of the greatest men who ever lived, or end his pitiful existence and destroy his short life.

Either way, what was going down was something big.

Jared was still weak as they led him toward the tank of blue liquid in which his bones would be coated in adamantium. His skin was still broken in places. He had been told the liquid would make those cuts burn as if they were on fire. Oh, well. When these guys decided on something, there was no stopping them. It didn't matter that he was telling the truth about the fact that needles scared him and he hated sharp things. They said they were doing it, so they were doing it.

As he lay in the tank, his skin feeling like it was on fire, he suddenly realized that Weapon X had gone through this once. And thinking that made him think, if he can do this, so can I!

Then the adamantium started pumping under his skin.

He had never felt so much pain, not even the time he had gone to the correction area, was back for a day, then went right back. He was glad when unconsciousness pulled him away from the dark pain an eternity later, although in reality it was about fifteen minutes.

Hours later, he found himself on a hard bed with thin sheets... although his wrists were stuck in place by cuffs of steel.

"Hello, little friend. How do you feel?"

"Like I got shot with a nuclear bomb, 'friend'. What do you want, Stryker?"

Stryker smiled an evil grin. "Well, I hope you're up to more punishment, because now we're installing your claws. So, the way this is going to work is, we cut open your forearms, and we put your claws in in a way that they won't fall out."

"Well, that's very nice of you. It'd be really awkward to be in the middle of a fight, then have to call a time-out so I could put my claws back in my arms. But, uh,... you're giving me extra anesthesia, right? I mean, I'm not great with needles and I hate sharp things and AAAAAAAAAAAAGGHHHHHHHH!"

Jared screamed in pain as the blade dug deeper and deeper into his arm to allow the claws to fit where they needed to be. He fell unconscious as they started digging up his second arm.

Jared woke up again in time to see Wong Chi filling a syringe with something clear. Usually just the sight of a needle would make him feel nauseous, but after all he had been through today, the thought of getting a shot didn't even make him blink.

The man looked at Jared, then explained how splicing worked. He was still kind of out of it, so he missed most of the explanation, but he caught the gist of it: they poke you with a needle to make your body able to change, then they do something else so you become like the person the spliced DNA is from.(in reality, I'm pretty sure that is NOT how it works, so before some scientist tells me to do my research before I write a story, two things:1) this is a fictional story, it's supposed to be fake, and 2) I made this whole thing up because it sounds cool yet painful because most of this part is about painful things. If you don't like it, skip it. If you have trouble understanding that, see number one.)

Ten minutes and about twelve shots later, Jared was finally ready to have Wolverine's DNA spliced onto his genes.

"Are you ready for this?"

"Do I get a choice?"

"Well, no, but I can wait a minute if you're not ready..."

"Man, I'm never gonna be ready. Just get this thing over with so I can go back to my friends."

"All... All right." The man pushed the needle under Jared's skin. It didn't really hurt, but what came next did.

Jared felt like he was on fire as the liquid made it's way through his bloodstream to his brain. It was giving him a healing factor and heightened senses, and growing bone claws inside the metal ones they had given him. And while he knew it would be great later, right now, Jared felt like he was dying. Just as he felt like he couldn't take it any longer, he blacked out.

When he woke up again for the fourth time that day, Jared once again found himself in his metal dog crate. He had no idea how long he had been unconscious, or even how long he had been here. But it must have been a long time, everyone else was asleep. He suddenly remembered Paul, the one they called Laezer. He should have gotten to somebody by now.

The only question was who.

Who would help them in their time of need? Did anyone care enough to help? And even if they did, would they be able to find these outcasts who had cried for help from the depths of the dark pit they were engulfed in? Jared didn't know. And he wasn't really sure he cared, so long as someone came. It was completely pointless to worry about who was coming.