Origins
(X-Over with X-Men)
Your name is Faith Lehan. You are currently sixteen years old, though you have no problems passing for older if you want to. Your hometown is Boston and it's barely been a year since you were called as the Vampire Slayer, the one girl in all the world with the skill and strength to battle the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness.
Currently, though, you are holding something in your hand that makes you wonder if everything you think you know about yourself might just be a lie.
"Spark any memories?" the man sitting beside you on the couch asks.
You look at him, trying to remember if you've ever seen him before. He looks to be in his early to mid-twenties. Hairy, short, but powerfully built and handsome in a primal, wild way. His dark hair is swept up at the sides, a strange hairstyle if you've ever seen one. You are pretty certain you don't know him, but in some way you can't quite put your finger on he feels familiar.
Looking back at the photograph, you keep wondering. It shows three people, all of them wearing military fatigues, standing in the middle of some kind of army camp with jungle in the background. One of them is the man sitting beside you. The second one is a man you don't know. Big, muscular, blonde, vicious looking. There is something familiar about him, too.
The third person in the picture is you.
"This isn't possible, is it?" you ask, though you're not sure if you're asking him or yourself. "I mean, if the date on that picture is right, then it was taken thirty years ago. I wasn't even born then. And neither were you."
The picture looks old, faded, and its date is July 7, 1969. At first you considered the notion that the woman in the picture might be your mother or another relative you just might share a resemblance with. The odds are crappy, though. Everything about that woman, right down to the way she smirks into the camera while hugging the two men standing with her, is you. You'd stand the same way, you'd smirk the same way, you'd certainly grope two fine-looking male specimens the same way.
"It is possible," the man says. "My memories are pretty crapped up, but my earliest recollections go back to 1971. Haven't aged a day since then. Not sure why, but it's a fact."
He leans forward, giving you an intense look.
"You say you're just sixteen years old, darling. Are you sure about that? Do you remember being little? Do you remember your parents? Anything?"
You are tempted to lie, but somehow the words don't come across your lips. He is right, of course. You don't remember much of your past. Your earliest memory is barely two years old. According to the social services shrink you went to it's because of something traumatic that happened with your parents or something. You always accepted that as fact. Now, though?
The man reaches forward and touches your hands, his fingertips brushing across the faint scars on the back of your hands. Three on each hand, perfectly spaced.
"Do you remember how you came by these?" he asks, showing his own hands and the identical scars he carries there.
"No," you simply say. It's the truth, there's nothing there. Your Slayer healing should have taken care of any scars you received within a matter of days. These scars refuse to fade, though.
"May I try something?" he asks, his voice gentle. He doesn't seem like the kind of man who is gentle. For some reason, though, you trust him. It's a gut instinct and you've learned to listen to those, so you nod.
He reaches up your arm, his fingers probing your flesh, and you're beginning to think he might be trying to feel his way up to your chest, but he finally seems to find the spot he's been looking for. Gently moving your hand, he then digs his fingers in strong enough to bruise.
You can't quite suppress a gasp as a terrible pain shoots through your body. Something slides up your lower arm and through your hand, something sharp and cold. It explodes out of the three scars on the back of your hand, tiny droplets of your blood staining it. Three blades, three perfect, shiny blades.
"What the fuck...," you utter, staring at these... these claws that just came out of your hand.
"That's what I thought," the man says. He shows you his own hand and, moments later, he sports an identical set of steel claws, too.
"The stuff is called Adamantium," he says after a while. "Got it analyzed by some smart people I know and apparently it's the hardest substance known to man. Unbreakable. Oh, and my entire skeleton is coated with this stuff. Yours, too, I'd wager."
You try to wrap your mind around this. Steel claws? How come you have steel claws and never noticed? Oh, sure, you always were a little heavier than your build would led to believe, but steel inside your body? You'd remember anyone putting steel in your body.
Then again, would you? You don't remember anything until two years ago. And come to think of it, at the supposed age of fourteen you already looked pretty much like you do right now.
"Tell me more," you finally say. "Starting with, what was your name again?"
"Logan," he says, settling down. "And I don't know a whole lot yet, but I'm gonna tell you what I have."
THE END