X-men and Ranma crossover
Claws
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Chapter 1
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As soon as the X-factor jet landed at the lab in the Canadian wilderness, swarms of doctors and technicians hurried out of the building to the plane. One man called Dr. Bryon, lead the way and was the first into the plane as soon as the doors were open.
"Wonderful! There isn't a mark on him." He said as he gestured to two techs to carry Ranma out of the jet and into the lab.
"Yes sir. He took out all six of my men without breaking a sweat and only went down when I shocked him with the tazer." The leader of the X-Factors, a man named James Brown, said as he and the doctor followed Ranma's body. "It was necessary though, to keep him sedated during the trip as when he woke up the first time, he broke three of my men's arms when they tried to detain him from opening the rear door of the jet in an attempt to escape, regardless of the height we were flying at."
"He tried to jump out of a moving plane? He either has more guts than sense or is suicidal. Either way, he's perfect." Dr. Bryon said as he rubbed his hands eagerly. James excused himself from the Doctor's presence and hurried back to the jet to make sure all his men were ok while the doctor hurried on into the lab.
By the time he got there, the other doctors had placed the helmet on Ranma's head in preparation of wiping his mind clear of all memories besides his name and fighting skills. "Are we ready to begin?" he asked and Dr. Hart nodded.
Dr. Hart was the only woman in the entire project and she was a beauty. While the other doctors were in their late forties or older, she wasn't even thirty yet, and with her long blond hair that reached her waist and her big blue, she looked more like a super model that a doctor.
"We will be recording his memories before we erase them so that we may study them at out leisure another time." She said and Bryon nodded.
"Excellent. Commence with the mind wipe." He said and she nodded as she pushed a button. It was over a few minutes later just in time for Ranma to wake up. As the helmet was removed, he looked up at Hart with slightly blurry eyes and smiled slightly before he shook his head briskly and looked around, clear headed and confused.
"Where am I and what is going on?" he demanded as he took in the sight of the lab.
"My name is Dr. Hart, Ranma and you lost your memory in an accident. We want to help you, ok?" she said with her biggest smile and he reluctantly nodded. As she was the only one who could speak Japanese, she was the one who had to communicate with him
"Great! Now, these technicians are going to hook a bunch of wires and tubes to various parts of your body, so will you please take off your clothes, but leave your underwear on." She said and turned around.
Self-consciously, Ranma stripped out of his clothes and handed them to a waiting tech, who whisked them away. As soon as that man was gone, a group of others rushed up and started connection wires and tubes to him. He winced when each tube was inserted, but didn't protest. Dr. Hart seemed like a trustworthy woman who really wanted to help him. If she said that this was going to help him, then he was all for letting her do it to him.
"Now, will you please stand on the platform over there and put on the breathing mask that is waiting? We you to be surrounded by a special type of liquid for this to work." Dr. Hart said and Ranma nodded and stepped up onto the small circular platform.
He stood still as the glass tube came down and the liquid started to fill it, but when it got chest high, his sense of danger started telling him to get out of there, but by that time it was to late. As he started thrashing in the liquid, he could hear Dr. Hart telling him it was ok and that he need to calm down. When he started to claw at the tubes sticking out of him, the doctors pumped a sedative into his oxygen mask, making him feel dizzy and slight tired, but it did calm him down.
"I think we can continue now." Dr. Bryon said and Dr. Hart nodded in agreement. "Start the adamantium feed."
"Adamantium feed initiated." One of the assistants said as he pushed a button and glowing silver substance flowed through tubes and into Ranma, making him writhe in pain.
The fog cleared from his brain quickly as the molten metal entered his body and molded itself to his bones with the help of sonic sound waves that nudged it in the right directions. The pain continued for several minutes after the feed stopped, and Ranma's healing powers went on overdrive as it struggled to keep him alive as the adamantium bonded with him. The pain intensified in his hands and forearms for a moment before six claws, three on each hand, popped out.
Ranma had endured the pain in silence as someone had once told him that screaming was unmanly and that he had to be manly at all cost. During the initial pain, he had used some meditation techniques to ignore the pain, but when the claws popped out, it was too much and he let out a deep, soul-searing scream that had most of the doctors and technicians cringing in sympathy.
As it trailed off, Dr. Bryon approached the tank and looked at Ranma as he floated in the liquid. "Keep him in there for the next six hours to make sure he will survive, then begin planting the false memories that will ensure that he will stay loyal to us." He said and strode out the room.
'I just wish I knew what was going on.' Ranma thought as he slipped into blessed unconsciousness.
"I can't believe that I let those X-Factor creeps blind side me like that. Now they have Ranma and I don't know where they were taking him." Scott said as he paced in front of professor Charles Xavier. They were in the war room discussing what had happened on Scott's mission.
"Don't worry, Scott. We can use Cerebro to find him, just like it did last time." Xavier said reassuringly as the metal helmet lowered to sit on his head.
"Whoa, did somebody just say X-factor?" Logan, also known as Wolverine, said as he stepped into the room.
"Yes. They just took the boy Ranma Saotome from Nerima Japan for a reason that we can't figure out." Scott said as he continued pacing.
"Is the kid a mutant?" Logan demanded and Xavier nodded.
"Yes, his powers were just woken up last night. Is power is quick healing."
"Damn it! They're doing it again!" Logan shouted as he ran out of the room with the others not far behind him.
"What do you mean, Wolverine?" Scott demanded as he stopped in the doorway to Logan's room.
"What I mean, is that the people who did this to me," he said popping out his claws, "is doing it again to the kid." As Scott stared at him in shock, he finished changing into his yellow and black uniform and hurried for the door. "Out of my way." He growled as he pushed past the still stunned Cyclops.
"Wolverine, wait. You need to have the coordinates to find them in time." Scott protested but then they both heard Xavier say from behind him, "I have the location, but I would like Rogue and Storm to go with you two."
"I can do this on my own." Wolverine growled but settled down when Xavier shook his head. "No. It is much too dangerous. Cyclops, Storm and Rogue with protect you and the boy while you gat him to safety."
"Fine, Chuck, but I still want to kick a little ass for what they've done." Wolverine growled as he stalked towards the Blackbird.
Within twenty minutes, they had lifted off and were on their way to the spot Xavier had pin pointed with Cerebro. It was a tense flight, which luckily, only lasted half an hour. By the time they landed in a clearing near their target, Wolverine had gotten on everyone's last nerve. Rogue had even offered to throw him out the door while they were still thirty thousand feet up.
Finally they landed and Wolverine charged out of the jet and into the woods. "Wolverine wait!" Storm shouted after him as she took flight.
"Go with him storm. Rogue and I will catch up with you." Cyclops said and she nodded before flying after him. Turning to Rogue he asked, "Would you please give me a lift?"
"Sure, Sugar. We don't want Wolverine to have all the fun, right?" she drawled as she grabbed his hands in her gloved ones and quickly flew after their teammates. They caught up just as Wolverine made a new opening in a wall with his claws. Entering, they noticed the tube with a teenage boy floating in it in the center of the room with tons of scientists and doctors standing around it, staring at them.
"So I heard that you fools were attempting to make someone into another weapon X. Now you people wouldn't be foolish enough to try that again, right?" Wolverine asked as he popped out his claws.
"It's Logan!" one of the men shouted as he rushed towards an intercom. "All personal of X-factor, get down to the lab immediately!" hew shouted into the panel right before Storm blew it up with a bolt of lightening.
Wrenching a large piece of machinery out of its place against the wall, Rogue threw it against the large doors, blocking team X-factor from getting in. "No more threat from that angle. How's it from yours?" Rogue called over to where Storm was herding the people into a corner with wind and precisely aimed lightening bolts.
"I am nearly finished." Storm replied as she started to form a wall of ice around the people to keep them from escaping.
"A little help would be a good thing right now!" Cyclops said from his position at the hole they had used for an entrance. Now it was swarming with guards and people from team X-Factor.
"Come on. Lets go teach those boys some manners." Rogue said with a wink as she and Storm headed to help keep them out.
While the others had been neutralizing the threats, Wolverine had went straight to the tank where Ranma was still floating listlessly. They had kept him sedated so that he couldn't cause any trouble with his new claws.
Looking at Ranma as he floated gently in the tank, Wolverine got a flash of when he had been in there, all those years ago. The anger that he had felt at the doctors that had done it to him. The pain as the metal was grafted to his bones.
Shaking off the memories, he popped his claws and slashed at the tank, causing it to break open and spill both the thick fluid and Ranma into his waiting arms. The tubing had been removed earlier, so Wolverine only had to take off the mask and the wires after he had gently put him on the ground so that he could have both hands free to work with. Within a minute, all the wires were laying on the ground next to the facemask and Ranma was becoming more alert as the drugs wore off.
Looking at the boy's hands, he noticed the claws sticking out and sighed in disappointment that he had been to late in stopping it. The claws were different from his though. While Wolverine's claws were one foot long, razor sharp, and straight, as they were stored in his arms, Ranma's were a foot long, razor sharp, curved claws that looked like a cat's.
Lifting his eyes to Ranma's, which were looking a lot more clear now that he wasn't breathing air laced with a sedative, he was shocked to see pain and confusion in them. Thinking that he had just misread them, he took another look at them as Ranma confirmed what was in them.
"What did they do to me? Why did they do this to me?" he whispered painfully as he stared down at him hands, where the claws were still sticking out.
"I'll explain everything that I can as soon as we get out of here." Wolverine said as he stood up and extended a hand to Ranma. "Are you up to walking or do I need to carry you out?" he asked and Ranma shook his head as he stood up shakily.
Wolverine lead him through the hole in the wall, stopping only long enough to growl at Storm, "Get all the disks you can find. I want to know exactly how they did what they did and how they found him."
"I'll get right on it." She said as she went back into the building, just as Rogue finished flattening the last of the guards with a tree she had uprooted. Now she settled back down to earth in front of Ranma and Wolverine. Wordlessly, she slung one of his arms over her shoulders, grabbed Wolverine by the wrist and took off for the Blackbird, leaving Cyclops to wait for Storm.
As they landed back at the jet, Rogue supported Ranma into the plane, where she left him in one of the chairs in the back on her way to go start the plane. Kneeling in front of him, Wolverine pulled off his facemask and let it hang on his back as he gently put the safety straps into place around the boy, who was still starring at his hands.
"Are you going to be ok, kid?" he asked and Ranma nodded slowly.
"I've survived everything else that has happened to me, well, I think something has happened. I can deal with this too." Ranma said as he leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.
"Why don't you sleep for a little while and then you can tell me everything you remember that happened." Logan said as he sat in the chair next to Ranma's.
"I don't want to sleep." Ranma said determinedly as he opened his eyes and straightened in his seat. Turning to the man next to him, he said, "You seem to know something about what is going on. Will you tell me?"
"I know some of what happened because they did it to me too, but the wiped my mind, so I don't remember much." Logan said as he looked out the window. Storm and Cyclops had arrived a moment ago and now they were rising into the sky in a vertical take off. As soon as they got to a sufficient height, they shot off towards the USA and Xavier's School for the Gifted.
Turning back to Ranma, he said, "Basically, they kidnapped us and grafted adamantium, the strongest metal in the world, to our bones. For some reason, though, it also created these claws." He popped out his claws to show, Ranma and noticed when he winced at the word claws.
"My…claws…look different than yours? More like a c…ca…cat's." Ranma stuttered the last word as he looked at his curved claws. Shivering at some missing memory, he looked at Logan and asked, "How do I make them disappear like yours?"
"Tighten some muscles along your arm and they should retract." Logan said and demonstrated. Watching Logan's claws disappear, Ranma triggered his own and watched silently as they disappeared into his own arms. But not all of them disappeared. The last inch and a half of each claw stuck out of his skin and arched delicately over his knuckles.
"Why are they sticking out like that?" Ranma asked, the beginnings of panic starting to creep into his voice.
"Yours are curved so you probable don't have room for all of them inside your arms so they had to compensate by leaving the last inch or two out. I can have some gloves made up for you with metal sheaths on them to make it look like the spikes are just part of the gloves." Logan suggested and Ranma nodded gratefully. Now that they were safely in the air, Logan took off his safety harness and stood up.
"It will probably take you a while to get used to the extra weight of the metal, so you might want to walk around a little." Logan suggested and Ranma reluctantly unhooked his harness as well.
"I've carried around heavier weights than this before." He said and then looked confused. "Well, I think I have."
"I know the feeling all to well, but they put false memories into my head so I can't be sure what's real and what's not sometimes." Logan said in a low voice as he dragged a hand threw his hair. He wasn't sure why, but he felt connected to this kid, which was making him open up and loose his gruff exterior.
"Logan, would you and our young guest like something to drink?" Storm asked as she came towards them, startling both of them. Logan just tensed up for a moment before relaxing, but Ranma leapt backwards and fell into a fighting crouch, his claws popping out on his subconscious order. After a moment of assessing her, he slowly relaxed and withdrew his claws.
"Kid?" Logan said, an unvoiced question in his eyes.
"Her voice reminded me of the woman who did this to me." Ranma said as he sat down in his chair and buried his head in his hands.
When, Logan turned to translate, Storm held up her hand. "One of the reasons I was asked to come is because I understand and speak Japanese." Turning back to Ranma, she said in flawless Japanese, "I think we should introduce ourselves. My name is Storm and I control the weather. The man with the visor is Cyclops, or Scott Summers depending on what we're doing at the time and he has powerful optic beams. The Southern woman next to him is Rogue. She absorbs energy, memories, and powers by touching someone with her bare skin. You have already meet Logan. His code name is Wolverine and his power is self-healing, like you. What's your name?"
"Ranma. Ranma Saotome. Thanks for getting me out of there." He said and Storm smiled at him encouragingly.
"Would you like some thing to drink Ranma?" she asked and he nodded. Turning, she went to a small compartment towards the back of the room and opened it. "As it appears that Jubilee has been in here, we only have bottled water at the moment. Is that ok?" she called over her shoulder as she got enough for everyone.
"That's fine." After being handed he water, Ranma smiled at her. Turning back to his water, he twisted open the cap, but before he could take a sip, they hit turbulence, which dumped the water all over him. Ignoring the weird tingle that ran through his body, Ranma sighed as she brushed the water off his face and…chest?
Looking down at himself, he noticed that his chest wasn't as flat it was supposed to be. Now he had boobs. Really big ones. "I'm a girl!" he screamed and abruptly fainted.
Logan had been the only facing him when the change had appeared, and he was to much in shock to do anything except catch her as she fell. Storm and Rogue came running up from behind him while Cyclops yelled, "What's going on?"
As soon as she saw the transformed Ranma, Rogue tore off her jacket, and covered her decently before taking her out of Logan's arms. "Why don't you go sit with Scott and tell him what happened, ok Sugar? Storm and I will take care of Ranma." She said and he nodded, even as Storm was pushing him towards the front of the jet.
Turning, Rogue rushed into one of the back compartments were they had a couple beds just I case one of them had to lay down for some reason or another. Placing Ranma on a bed, she covered her with a sheet before sitting next to the bed in a handy chair.
"Is he…she…alright?" Storm asked as she entered the room and closed the door behind her.
"I don't know. She seems to have fainted, but I don't know anything about fainting women." Rogue answered, a helpless look in her eyes.
"Do not worry, Rogue. Ranma should wake up soon. Without her memories, it must have been quiet a shock to him to turn into a girl, if this is something that he had from before." Storm said reassuringly as she put a hand on the brunette's shoulder.
"Well, do you have some smelling salts or something?"
"I think it best that we just let her rest for now. We will be back at the mansion in about ten minutes."
"So what was all that about?" Cyclops asked as Wolverine sat down next to him in the copilot's chair.
"I have no clue, one eye. The kid just turned into a very well built girl when he spilled some cold water on himself during that bit of turbulence."
"A girl?!"
"A girl."
"Where is the jerk?!" Akane screamed as she stormed into the house. She had spent most of the night and the entire morning searching for the missing Ranma. She had even got to both the Ucchan and the Cat-Café in a last chance attempt to find him. At the moment Ukyo, Shampoo, Cologne, and a reluctant Moose were looking for him.
"I think I may know what happened to him." Kasumi said as she gestured for Akane to join her at the table. Haring that, the rest of the family flocked to the table also.
"What do you mean that you may know what happened?" Nabiki asked, cutting straight to the point.
"Yesterday morning, I went to help Ranma with his bandages from the fight the day before, but the gash was gone. We went to Dr. Tofu's and he told Ranma that he was a mutant. Apparently, his power is fast healing." Kasumi said calmly as she sipped her tea.
"What?!" came from four different directions at once as everybody stared at the serene Kasumi as she sipped her tea.
"And you two wanted me to marry that freak? That MUTANT?!" Akane screeched at her father and Ranma's.
"Regardless of that, it doesn't change he fact that he has saved you a ton of times." Nabiki said as she got her wits back. She, unlike some people in her family, didn't hate mutants just because they were different. She actually had some friends who were mutants.
"Any way, I think that he might have run away. He is to honorable for his own good sometimes and he said that he wanted to be alone for a while." Kasumi said quietly as she stared into her tea.
"Whhhhhaaaaaaa!!!!!! Now our schools will never be joined because Ranma ran away! Whhhhhaaaaaaa!!!!!!" Soun wailed while Genma was shaking and shivering.
"Oh my GOD! Nodoka is going to kill me!"
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TBC