Inspired by Lone Wolf and Cub by Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima.

PLEASE NOTE! Even though this story is inspired by Lone Wolf and Cub, this is going to be a romance. That means that once Elle is grown up, she's going to sleep with Logan. If you don't like those kinds of stories, I won't fault you for passing on this one.

This was my first attempt at writing for the X-Men fandom. When I wrote this story, I hadn't read many Marvel comics apart from a few famous Wolverine stories, so I placed this story in a rough movie continuity. The story covers ALL the movies. I did decide to use a few things from the comics, namely Logan's height and eye color (so he will contrast Remy once I bring him in). I mean, I love Hugh Jackman but for this story it works a little better to have Logan tough and tiny. Of course, the addition of Elle means I have to change some things from the films, so nothing will be perfect. Enjoy!

I hate the cold.

Cold reminds me of steel, like the floor and walls in the cell. The whole thing is too cold and empty to be home, but it is the closest thing I have and I don't even get a bed. I've got a window, most homes have one of those, but unlike a sunny yard my window shows a dank and miserable hallway. I don't get to go outside and play like most seven year olds. I do get to go outside the cell, but not to play. Never to play. Oh, occasionally I'll hear one of the creeps refer to what they do as 'playing', but their sick sense of humor disgusts me. Especially the big one with the coal black eyes; if I so much as squeak without permission, he'll point his nails at me...

I curled my legs against my chest as I remembered how I got the latest scratch on my arm. For some reason, every time the others cut and scraped me, the cuts healed and faded away. But when the big one cuts me, his cuts leave scars. See, the whole reason I'm here is because people can cut me. A lot. I'm a mutant, they explained, and my mutation is something called a 'healing factor'. But my healing is "really weak compared to his". I don't know who his is, but I do know that normal people don't heal when their skin is cut open the way I do. How do I know that? Because when they first caught me, they caught my mom too. And they did the same things to her that they're doing to me. But she didn't make it.

"Hey brat, stop sniveling in your corner and get up!"

I didn't realize I was crying, nor did I realize someone was coming in the cell until the big one stomped in and dragged me out of my corner by my sore arm. I yelped in pain as he dug his long thumbnail into the wound, probably on purpose.

"Aww, what's wrong, arm hurts? Well that'll learn ya to ignore the boss's commands, runt," he hissed, and dragged me out of the room. I should've known better, but I started kicking and screaming in protest for him to let me go. The big one frightened me, especially since his wounds always seemed to hurt more and take forever to go away. I was halfway down the hall before he had enough, and smacked me across the head.

William Stryker looked up from his clipboard of paperwork as the door burst open, to an annoyed Sabretooth dragging an unconscious little girl behind him. "...Victor, don't you know how to handle a little girl?"

"Her whining was annoying," he answered with a grumble, dropping her down on a surgical table in front of his boss.

"You know I need her alive."

"She can heal, can't she?"

Stryker went back to his clipboard. "Not to the degree that you or Weapon X can," he answered. "At least not in her current state. It's possible that she may improve after puberty, but then again we may need to intervene to see improvement. But our tests thus far indicate that she would survive the gestation period with minimal interference, and while it's not certain, she should pass on the healing factor."

"'Gestation period?' What the hell you talkin 'bout, breeding? With that scrawny runt?" Sabretooth scoffed, but then scratched his sideburns. "Eh, you never know. She might be a nice piece of ass when she grows up. Never been into the Japs though myself..."

"Elle is only half Japanese," Stryker corrected, looking at the girl on the table. "A shame she didn't get the mutation from the mother's side, we could have used her as well. Anyway, we will likely start tests with Weapon X once she is through puberty."

Sabretooth hissed in disapproval. "How come he gets first go? I been doin all the work."

"You think we're actually going to put the two of them in the room together and let him have at it?" Stryker nearly laughed him out of the room. "I thought you were smarter than that, Victor. He'd tear the damn kid apart, I'm not that stupid. This is a laboratory, everything will be controlled. I'm not going to leave my experiments up to something as unpredictable as a woman's menstrual cycle."

Stryker and Sabretooth continued bantering over various things as Stryker finished his paperwork, until they were interrupted by a guard over the comm system.

"Sir, we have the information you requested on the escaped subject," the guard explained, just as the girl on the table started coming around.

"Victor, go down to control and see to the investigation on the escaped subject. I want to know how he escaped, where the guards were that were supposed to be watching him, and anywhere he might be headed. Then go find him," Stryker ordered, moving to strap the girl down before she woke up and tried to squirm away.

"It was that little shit with the fucked up eyes, wasn't it?"

"I don't know, I've been preoccupied with Weapon X. But you have my permission to punish those who let him escape," Stryker added as Sabretooth stormed out the door, a grin coming to his face.

I woke up in the bad room, with the bad man standing over me.

"Good afternoon, Elle. How are we, today?"

Stryker, his name's Stryker. And if I don't answer him, he'll hit me. But my head hurts, so I only manage to groan. He seemed satisfied with the answer, because instead of hitting me, he grabbed his measuring instruments and examined a long patch on my leg. They had removed the skin there one of the days, I don't remember when but I remember the pain. Every day after that they measured it to see how my body healed it.

"Well, it looks like you've regrown almost all of the skin we removed on your leg, how impressive," he said with his fake 'nice' voice. Nothing about him is nice. "Hmm, what's this, your arm looks like it's bleeding," he then said as he picked up my sore arm and yanked away the rough bandage I made out of a piece of my 'potato sack' that they cover me in.

"Hmm, I see Victor was having a little fun," he said as he poked the fresh tears, making me whimper. "I think it's fascinating how you never seem to heal from his wounds. Did you ever wonder if there's a reason for that? Perhaps your fear of him interrupts the healing process, or maybe his nails secrete something that prevents the flesh from healing completely... Then again it could just be because he's dragging his nails through you in a jagged manner instead of the smooth slices of an incision."

I shivered on the table as he promptly dropped my arm and got on with his list of 'exercises' for the day. I didn't know it at the time, but today was apparently the day I was scheduled to 'die'. Stryker wanted to see how much blood he could drain from me until my heart stopped. He had a potion or something to kick start it again, and machines to plug into me if I didn't start making more blood.

He stuck a tube in my arm, pushed a few buttons on a machine nearby, and then everything got cold. It was getting colder and colder, and I started to fall asleep. As I was drifting off, I saw a bunch of people rush into the room and Stryker get upset. Suddenly the machine hooked up to me was turned off, and everyone started paying attention to other monitors. I didn't remember what happened after that, because I woke up back in my cell.