Notes: Howdy! I'd just like to thank dogo and lizjennings for reviewing chapter one. It's always great to hear from you guys. :)

(Two)

Logan closed his eyes and gasped for a second time as his mind was flooded with images. He tried to open his eyes to get away from them, but he was now paralyzed, locked in place by whatever Asher was doing. The Siskan was acting as a mediator, directing Famayalin's memories and feelings through his touch so Logan could experience the nightmare that had been Kyle Gibney's life.

Wolverine first saw Kyle as a young boy. He was down on his knees on the hard kitchen floor of his home, his father towering over him in a terrible rage. Kyle had never been a very co-ordinated kid and at just six years of age, he often stumbled into things. He had a hard time orienting himself in space, he couldn't correctly judge the distances between objects in a room. He'd move around and then furniture and walls would just suddenly be in his way. He tried very hard not to anger his father, not to break things, but it just kept happening.

Logan squinted as he was bombarded by the memory. He was amazed at how dull the boy's senses were. This dullness went beyond the fact that Kyle was not a mutant - Logan had had his own senses blunted temporarily before and this went well beyond that. Even for a normal human boy, tiny Kyle was dim-witted in his ability to move. He had no spacial awareness and the way he processed sound and colors was off. Logan now realized that Kyle was slightly retarded or disabled in some way and it affected his sensual perceptions. The thought of it chilled Logan because he knew now that Asher would win. Never had this fact been brought to light and it would affect everything that happened in this kid's life. Logan was feeling a strange sensation — guilt — when the show before him continued.

"You stupid little boy!" Kyle's father was yelling. The man paced, paced, paced. Thick leather rasped through calloused fingers.

"I'm sorry, daddy!" poor tiny Kyle sobbed. He was horrified and humiliated. He didn't understand just how things had gone so terribly wrong. He had taken the carton of milk out from the 'fridge for breakfast and then the table was just suddenly there. He had collided with it painfully and the carton had fallen to the floor, spilling out its contents in a big white pool.

"You know we ain't got enough money! Not for an ugly little mistake like you! I've told you and told you and still you don't listen!"

Logan couldn't help but shudder with renewed guilt. How many times had he shouted those very same words to this kid - "...an ugly mistake like you" - in the past? Son of a bitch...!

"I'm sorry, daddy! Please don't hurt me!"

"Well, it's too late for that, isn't it? Seems like a good beating is the only way to learn a retard like you!"

Kyle howled as the belt came down at him, whipping him across the back. His clothes were pitiful and thin. The shirt split open at the contact and then daddy was yelling at him again as if that had been his fault, too. Poor Kyle's heart swelled with pain and anger. It was an anger so ugly and deadly that it would dwell in him for a long time. Yes, this was Kyle's life for the next seven years. The constant beatings, his repetitive failures. His mother was gone, she had run off and left him behind, something his father reminded him of daily, turning it around so that it was always Kyle's fault for that, too. If he hadn't been so small and weak, so clumsy and stupid, she would still be here.

Kyle worked very hard, he did. He did his best to please his angry father. He stayed up late at night, reading his school books under the blankets with a flashlight. He worked very hard, but when it came to test time, the answers just seemed to drift away from him like nasty little traitors. He was a low D student and no amount of studying seemed to help. His co-ordination and spacial deficiencies were horrible and didn't improve with age or beatings. He tried out for sports at his father's behest but his failures only enraged his father even more. Their home life disintegrated until they hardly spoke except to fight and brawl. The rage built and built, building up and finally exploding when his father came at him one last time.

Kyle had made some new friends that year. It hadn't taken long for a young impressionable fourteen year old with no life to be ensnared by the local drug dealers. Here he finally found some sense of family. They used him for small runs and collections, a nice little stupid errand boy that no one would miss if he had gotten caught. At least they spoke to him and spent time with him, in their way. He was finally included in something that didn't require physical strength or co-ordination.

Earlier that day, one of his new friends had given him a gun for a job and Kyle had forgotten to return it. Kyle was a little dim, but he wasn't completely stupid. He realized early that a gun was a nice little equalizer. He didn't have to be an A student to figure out how that puppy worked, oh yeah. When his father came for him again, that same equalizer ended their pathetic relationship forever.

As he watched Kyle exact his revenge, Wolverine was filled with the lustful rush of the boy's first kill. It came with a strong sense of satisfaction that Logan had felt himself many times before. The murder of a monster had always made him feel this way - he had beaten or killed more than his share of child molesters and wife beaters in his various travels. There was nothing better than busting the head of someone who'd so terribly wronged another. He howled with joy along with young Kyle, filled with the thrill of the kill.

Sadly, the rush didn't last long for either of them. Kyle pumped his father full of lead and split, hitting the streets for good. He tried to go to his drug dealing friends for help, but they distanced themselves from him, fearful of being implicated in the murder. Rejected and angry once more, Kyle fled the area, vowing never to return. With no money he didn't get far. He managed to avoid the authorities at least, disappearing into the slums of Vancouver nearby where he'd been born.

The slums swallowed him whole as they did all derelicts and he discovered a life not much better than the one he'd had with his father. He was filthy and ragged so begging got him very little. At least he wasn't alone, he observed other young street kids trying to get by and it wasn't long before he was introduced to a more lucrative way to survive. At the tender age of fifteen, he was in the alleyways with them, giving blow jobs for five bucks a pop, just enough for him to eat and maybe rent a room for few hours of warm sleep. The ways of the streets came without books and tests, it was pass/fail, and in this regard Kyle had learned fast enough when it counted.

Logan twisted and squirmed as he was blasted with Kyle's ugly memories. Here were dirty, filthy johns, groping at him in the dark with their rotten, disgusting hands. "Suck me," they would whisper. "Such a sweet young boy, so very good. Yes..."

Back in the cell, Logan grunted and snarled in revulsion and outrage, reflexively popping the claws on one hand.

"Sharpsy!" Smee cried out fearfully and jumped away to Asher's back. "Sharpsy, angry, hatesy!"

"Easy there, James," Asher's voice came at Logan soothingly, calling him by his secret name. The one he had been born with and so few people even knew. "Put thems away."

Logan sheathed his claws and snarled softly. "What is this? Just a bunch of lies! Yer makin' all of this up!" He was shaking and trembling, unsure his words were even true. He just wanted this to end. This was too horrible.

"Still shure alla this is a lie? Well, look in on this."

Wolverine grunted once again in frustration as he was blasted with more of Kyle's memories. He saw a man in a dark black suit, waving a large wad of money in his face. Poor Kyle hadn't eaten in three days. The weather was bad, it was winter now and the tricks just weren't coming. It had snowed and he was freezing, hurting all over from the cold. This one had pulled up in a dark black Suburban and walked up to him in the alley demanding, "I want to fuck you, boy."

Kyle trembled with fear. "I ain't never..."

The money came at him again. "I'll give you all of it. Come on, boy. It won't hurt... much."

Kyle weighed his options. A meal and a room for the night. A shower. He had always been a clean boy, this nightmare existence was torture for him. He was thin and frail, not even a hundred pounds now. Another night out in the snow like this just might kill him. He chose survival and took the man's money. "Over here," he said, pointing to the alley.

The man saw survival in Kyle's eyes and found it good. He gestured to his car. "It'll be warmer in there."

Kyle nodded and entered the big black Suburban, a vehicle anyone in the know would recognize immediately as a carriage of the government. He slipped in and didn't have a moment to scream as he was grabbed from within and held down. His dim senses hadn't improved with age and in the darkness of the night, he hadn't realized there were others here. The inside light had been disabled, it didn't come on when the door had opened. He was pinned down and gagged. He struggled but was far too frail to offer much resistance. A needled pricked his arm and darkness came for him. Just before he was gone, heard a voice rasp, "Jesus, Frank! This one's half dead!"

"He was the only one who said yes! You think you're so smart? Next time you do it, Bob!"

Logan shuddered. Kyle didn't know those voices, but he did. Frank Langly and Robert Tungsten, two of Weapon X's recruiters, men not much better than the ones who had dragged him into the program as well.

Wolverine had been a member of the Program, and like his role in the X-men, there were times when he'd been expected to teach. These two scumbags had given him more than one pathetic scrap of flesh to try and mold into something useable. Like Kyle, some of those men had come unwillingly, but most had managed to get by. It was uncomfortable watching an abduction right up close, it was one thing to hear about it and quite another to watch it. Still, others had been kidnapped and survived, doing well in the program. Logan was often up to the task of bringing out the best in the worst of men, his brutal instructions bringing out inner strength they never knew they had, but Kyle had been a bust from the start. He was about to find out why.

Kyle woke first in a room Logan was all too familiar with. It was the Green Room, an experimental lab for Weapon X, the place where Logan had gotten his Adamantium. Just the sight of it made Wolverine's skin crawl.

Logan had spent a lot of time in the Weapon X program - first as a special operative, then as an instructor and finally as a human lab rat for an experiment gone badly awry. The Adamantium bonding process had driven Logan mad and he had shown his displeasure by carving his way out of here, causing colossal damage and a great many casualties. He had thought all this was behind him, forgotten, but a memory boost from Jael a few years back had restored all that and looking at it again was making Logan sick.

A calendar fluttered against a back wall of the Green Room, it was early December, 1969. Only a year or two before Logan had gone through here himself, before he had slashed through the whole building, a ballistic human Cuisanart.

Kyle was naked, washed down, and strapped to a examination table. He squirmed and wiggled as he became more awake and aware, but in his already weakened state of malnutrition and disorientation, didn't have the strength or the skill to break free. He startled at the sound of a door opening behind him and strained to watch as two men came in, doctors judging by their surgical scrubs and white coats. He began to feebly plead for his life, that there must be some kind of mistake, but they ignored him.

Wolverine was familiar with this, too. The way the men moved about, as if the object on the table was little more than a lab rat. It had been the same when they had finally had their way with him as well. They didn't meet Kyle's eyes or speak to him, they didn't regard him as a person. They couldn't, not in this kind of work. He was just a subject to them, merely some homeless kid that no one was going to miss if whatever they had planned didn't quite work out.

Through the connection Asher had provided between them, Logan could feel Kyle's vibrations of fear, they had echoed his own when he had gone through the Adamantium bonding process./ Hey! What are you doing? I'm a person! What right do have to do this to me?! God! God help me! I don't want to die!

No acknowledging words were replied as they next bent over Kyle, tying him down even further and fixing IVs into the now bulging veins in his arms. With no body fat supporting him, they were quite easy to find. Kyle watched in horror as a bright red liquid was next pumped into him. He saw the name Logan 55 on the container, but it meant nothing to him. All he knew was that it burned like fire and made him scream like the devil. A second container was used, Creed 67, and he was howling now, driven insane by the pain.

They used our DNA and God knows what else to make him, Logan thought now to himself, feeling sick. Logan 55 was his, but Creed 67, that had come from Sabretooth no doubt. Sabretooth's given name was Victor Creed and as a member of Weapon X himself, his DNA would have been readily available to the scientists here. Logan had long suspected that some kind of programing had been used in Kyle's creation. He had even considered the idea that something as vile as this might have been done, but he never had the proof. It had been easier to just dismiss the rumor and treat Kyle as a mutant, one badly out of control.

Kyle was tormented over the next few days as the chemicals did their damage, altering him forever. His body was wracked with fever and he was tormented by overpowering odors and loud noises from all around. His sensory perception was going into overload - he could smell more, hear more, feel every little breeze that drifted over his sweat slick skin. It was more than he could stand and keep sane.

Worse than that was an endless stream of foul dreams. He was a wild animal running naked and free through the woods, hunting. Always hunting... and never finding. His mind was blown away by his newly heightened senses, an overloaded brain that hadn't been able to properly process the ones he had been born with from the start, never mind this staggering upgrade.

Sadly, though, even in his dreams, he couldn't run right. He was surging with energy but when he leapt, he landed all wrong and crashed into trees and tumbled to the ground. Filled with a lust he couldn't explain, he would rise and run again, leaping wildly once more, mindless of the pain he had caused himself. His hands and feet were burning, the claws that would become his new weapons forcing themselves from his body with great violence. His muscles became hard like ropes and he was surging with energy, a strength and vitality he had never known before. Back in the Green Room, Kyle's dreams were affecting his sleeping body as well. He could hardly sit still and thrashed about, straining the straps they had bound him with.

Finally, when the fever broke and he was feeling better, he was moved to a cage for observation. Now that the fever that had clouded his mind had lifted, his body surged with energy just as it had in his dreams and he flung himself about tirelessly, wanting only to hunt and kill. His dreams of hunting prey in the woods had become a murderous rage in the real world. He used his new claws to hack and slash at any who came near him, marveling when his new talons repaired themselves as if like magic if they were broken. When the doctors realized he was an uncontrollable beast gone mad, they sent him to the next level for further programming in the hopes he could be salvaged. The goal was to have a brain-dead, remorseless killer. A stealthy, point and shoot weapon, one not hampered by a conscience. He was beaten and broken down until he was able to accept commands and learned his new place in the world.

He was transferred and he did learn some manners and control, but it came slowly. First they beat him into submission and then kept him under a tight watch, hoping that strenuous workouts and repetition of the exercises would straighten him out. He obeyed as best he could and slowly, slowly, he began to resemble something usable in their eyes.

They trained him to fight in a military, organized, and human manner. They had to beat him over and over again to get him to perform to their expectations, not realizing that their test subject had come in with limitations from the start. He was forced to compensate for his lack of coordination by default, these taskmasters were ten times as monstrous as his father had been. As fast as they whipped him, his body would quickly heal from it - a gift from Logan and Sabretooth's DNA - prompting them to beat him some more. It wasn't long before he could make his way through obstacle courses with an increasing ease, his fear of the whip an untiring teacher.

He suffered through many bouts of testing in those early days as well – he was cut, shot, burned and bruised frequently so that his rates of healing could be monitored. It made Logan cringe a little, it was something he would have endured himself if he hadn't broken out of the facility on his own after the Adamantium bonding process. He had never given them a chance. The testing on Wild Child continued throughout his entire stay, his progress constantly monitored.

While his bodily functions did gradually improve, his madness grew, something that didn't really show up in their many graphs. He was a sentient dog, a beast that was fully aware of what was going on, and sadly, also cognizant that like before, all of his hard work was taken for granted and unappreciated. No one recognized just how far he had come. He could leap and spar with the best of them. His spacial awareness had improved and he had become more acrobatic, able to save himself from falls he never would have made before. He could sneak in and sniff out the enemy, using his new senses to his advantage. He was well trained and submissive, he obeyed every order, anything to avoid the pain. But deep inside of him, a red ugly bomb was forming, only looking for a place to go off. He didn't know how much longer he could withstand this way of life without killing them all, each and every one, and drinking their blood down like wine.

His masters were oblivious or uncaring. Finally satisfied with his current progress, Weapon X mockingly gave him a new name, Wild Child, and he was Kyle no more. They sent him off to the higher levels for more training. They wanted to see how he would perform in a group environment and gave him to their best drill instructor, the one who had performed best time and time and again.

Wild Child was thrust into a line of new recruits and saw the cold steel blue of Wolverine's eyes for the first time.

By now, Wolverine had been with Weapon X for years and had graduated from fieldwork to instructor when off-mission, training the next generation of spooks and killers.

As painful as it had been to see the old Weapon X facility, Logan found it even worse looking back at himself as he was then. The time he had spent with Xavier had really softened and tempered the weapon this underground agency had turned out, something that was shockingly clear now that he was looking back at his old self.

This was James Logan, raw and gruff even before the Adamantium bonding that had sent him feral and screaming into the woods. He had been alive for many years by then, hiding his mutation as best he could, moving from place to place before settling down here. He was beginning to suspect his secret might be out, but so far nothing had been done about it – that he knew about anyway. He had no idea that he was already being eyeballed for future experimentation and that for the moment, it was just a matter of time.

He had also learned cruelty early, having dared to love and seen that love torn apart in an act of revenge he hadn't deserved. He and Sabretooth had grown up side by side, half brothers who had loved the same woman, a fetching young redhead named Rose. When her affections turned Logan's way, Sabretooth raped and murdered her, making sure that if he couldn't have her, neither one would. The heartbreak was more than Logan could withstand and so he had never dared to love another since, burying his emotions in booze and rough living.

James Logan the drill sergeant was harsh and unforgiving. He had known only pain and hardship all his long life and it showed on his face and his mannerisms. He was a long time alcoholic by now and it wasn't even unknown for him to pop a pill or two here and there, just to make the dull aching pain of simply being alive go away.

Because he had refused to give his heart to another after the death of Rose, he had known very little love and thus had none to give, least of all to a bunch of slackers like the crews he had been given to train. He gave them the same treatment he himself had received –- shouting, intimidation, humiliation and pain. He drilled them and drilled them and when they failed, drilled them some more without an ounce of mercy.

Wolverine now looked at his old self, shuddering in momentary revulsion, thinking of his kids. He and Karen had been blessed with three children over the course of their stormy yet solid marriage, two beautiful girls and a son who had just passed one year of age. While he had been a stern yet fair father, Logan would never dream of treating his kids the way his old self was howling at these cadets now, especially at Wild Child who just never seemed to do anything right.

Back in the holding cell, Famayalin whimpered softly. It wasn't painful memories, it was from a bit of understanding he had just gained. This transfer was a two way street, he was gaining knowledge he had never known just as Logan was learning from Child had never even considered the reasons why Logan was so cruel to him, he had assumed it was just a part of the man's nature. Now he knew better. It didn't excuse what was done to him, though, his eyes said, only that he recognized that Logan had been treated just as cruelly as he had been himself.

The memories played on. Wild Child was lumped in with the rest of Logan's next batch of young recruits and did his best to follow Logan's orders, but this new instructor's level of skill was too high for Wild Child to master easily. He was too slow, not quick enough for Wolverine's liking. Logan was running him through drills few special operatives could master and Wild Child couldn't keep up. He struggled with the new physical challenges and the stress was causing him to fail, earning him a tirade of Logan's drill instructor foul language and disgust. No matter how hard Wild Child tried, he was yelled at. He was sinewy and strong, gifted with animal keen senses. No one believed that he couldn't handle the tasks he had been given, there was no excuse for it. No one understood that it was just too hard for him to take in all once. He was still that slightly retarded child, one shown no mercy in this harsh military world.

Back in the holding cell and feeling Wild Child's emotions now as the memories were replayed, Logan could feel the boy's anger and rage. He could see now through Wild Child's clouded mind how his new senses often betrayed him, making him do things incorrectly. He performed decently at hand to hand combat and knife-play in close quarters, but couldn't shoot a gun worth crap. The loud bang of gunshots drove him crazy and in rapid gunfire situations, he would go completely rabid from the noise, attacking others around him. They didn't dare let him near any explosives. This particular weakness made him the butt of many unpleasant jokes and ridicule among his peers in the program and from his instructors as well.

Logan could sense Wild Child's sanity wither away under the harsh treatment of his own mouth. There was never a day that passed that he wasn't screaming in the kids face and shoving him around. Logan had never once stopped to think what it might be like to be on the receiving end of one of his own tirades. It was very enlightening.

Worse than all that of course was the presence of Victor Creed who had come along to help Wolverine whip the new recruits into shape. Here was Sabretooth in all of his glory. A three hundred pound monster killer who found no more amusement in Kyle's fuckups than Logan did.

It was an odd thing, Logan couldn't help but think. At this time in their lives and in spite of their violent and turbulent past, he and Creed had had no idea just who they were to each other. They had been born half brothers, sharing the same father, but all of that had been erased for the both of them, their minds haphazardly stripped clean by Weapon X.

Even before the Adamantium bonding had happened, both Logan and Creed had been put through "psychological treatments" which really amounted to nothing more than periodic brain wipes designed to kill the normal human conscience so they would kill freely with no guilt or remorse. It was these treatments that robbed them both of most of their memories. During the time they had both worked for Weapon X, neither one of them had even had a clue they were actually related. What had remained was a fierce and ugly competitive spirit, each one trying to outdo the other. They were known to drink and brawl savagely with one another, their fights legendary.

While Wolverine was at least doing his best to instruct the recruits he was given, Sabretooth just looked at it as an opportunity to have a little fun. He smacked Wild Child around in punishment for his failures, an immortalized teenager less than half his weight, thrilled by the fact that few of the supervisors did anything to stop him. Logan certainly hadn't. Perhaps some small part of Logan had believed that the pack mentality would help to get Wild Child motivated.

Now, from his new perspective as outside observer, Logan could feel Wild Child's rage grow by the day, a waiting nuclear bomb. On top of his mild retardation, now here was full blown insanity. His inner beast had been set free by tainted DNA, forcing his body to become something it had never been designed to be. If Logan thought his own inner beast had been wild, Wild Child's was three times stronger. Each day was a struggle to maintain some kind of humanity and poor Wild Child was rapidly losing the battle. He didn't bathe, he ate his meat raw any chance he could get, he had to be forcibly dressed and groomed. He was degenerating rapidly under the strain. There was no support here for him, no friends. Those hands that reached out to him all demanded the same thing – Be good and you'll be fed. Do as we say and you'll be allowed to live. He was a possession, nothing more. Less than human, and less than Logan and Creed ever would be. They at least had a foothold on reality. They could follow orders at a snap without having to fumble through the too complicated instructions. They were normal. They were perfect.

He hated them!

Wild Child tried to run away. It took a few tries, but eventually he was able to use his newfound skills to sneak out, but once free, had nowhere to go really. The closest place was Jackson Hills, a small town about ten miles from the hidden Weapon X facility. He made it there and broke into nearby houses, slaughtering those within, hateful of their normal lives and happiness. He had seen their pretty lives through those large lovely windows and it enraged him. No one was yelling at them, no one made them do drills over and over again. These folks had fine food and good clothing. It was so unfair!

He slaughtered the first family he saw, killing the husband and children immediately but saving the wife for last. He raped her savagely and without finesse, clawing her to death afterwards and then drinking her blood fresh as it gushed from her neck, delicious and salty and hot. He climaxed hard twice - the first time from feeling the hot sheath of her body around his own, something he had never felt before. Jerking off had nothing on this, on hearing her heartbeat and feeling the heat from her body radiate against his skin. It had never occurred to Wild Child to ask for the woman's favors - as if she would have given it freely! - he simply saw what he wanted and took it with brutal force. He had been trained not to care and in that, the Weapon X people had been quite successful. To know and understand mercy one has to receive it. This boy never had, not once.

The second hard climax came from the taste of her blood sluicing down his throat.

Logan snarled, trying to fight the duality straining his brain – Wild Child's joyful blood lust and his own disgust at the sight of it. Again he popped claws in his anger, snapping them back only when Asher lightly brushed his arm, asking for patience once more.

"You sees that?" Asher asked, his voice gentle and low.

"That sick fuck!"

Asher sighed softly. "It wuz his first woman."

"So what?" Wolverine spat. He couldn't even look at Famayalin now, all he wanted to do was punish. No woman should ever have to go down so hard.

"Innerestin' way to lose yer virginity, eh? Gotta wonders what that kin do to a fella."

Logan's eyes snapped up to meet Asher's, not sure what he was getting at. Once more he was confronted with a Siskan whose sexual morals did not match his own. So Wild Child popped his own cherry? Big fat deal. All Logan could see was a horror played out before his own eyes.

Asher was waiting. He could see Logan wasn't getting it and he wondered if the man ever would. Wolverine was about justice and punishment here. He would always sympathize with the victim, but sadly, the woman wasn't the only casualty in that room. Logan, in his hatred, couldn't see that Weapon X had finally created exactly what they had wanted – a remorseless killer who felt no guilt.

Asher also knew that this sexual encounter, ugly as it was, would forever taint the boy's idea of what a relationship was. Relationships were very important to the empathic Lushna-esk Siskans, it was the way they were programmed. Every detail was significant. Logan saw a freak on the loose, Asher saw an important pivotal moment of a young human's life being perverted beyond measure. No one should ever experience full sexual pleasure for the first time in this way. He couldn't help but wonder if the boy he held in his arms would ever have a normal love life, a deeply disturbing thought to a creature who held sex and love in such high regard.

The memories continued to play out before them. Once loose and now unrestrained out in the world, Wild Child discovered the joy of cannibalism and feasted greedily on his kills, the blood and fresh meat appeasing to the savage, angry beast within. It seemed as though he had inherited more from Sabretooth's DNA than Logan's, his inner beast a freak out of control.

What was the very best of course, was that for the first time in a long while, he was making his own decisions, he was calling his own shots. It was very liberating. He could do as he pleased – hunt, sleep, eat when he wanted to, not because he was ordered to do so. It was a pleasure he enjoyed down to his very core. He enjoyed the hunt like never before – the bullied had become the bully and it was exhilarating. His anger was allowed to run free and its liberation was a horror the town had never seen before or since.

It wasn't to last. Wild Child was hunted down by his Weapon X masters and eventually recaptured. He had made it easy for them – all they had to do was follow the sounds of screaming and the stench of fresh blood. He had managed to destroy four families before they finally caught up with him. A lot of money had been invested in him, too much for it to go to waste. He was forced through more "rehabilitation" programming which consisted mainly of another helping of mind altering drugs and savage beatings.

Logan again watched helplessly now as his mind was flooded with Wild Child's memories, the years of this that the boy was forced to suffer. Wild Child would be good for a time, then he would lose it and get passed through the grinder once more. He had never forgotten the delight of his exploits outside the facility and managed to get out twice more before he was finally brought under control, such as it was. Both times he got out it was the same, full scale slaughter of families and the savage raping of the women. His sexual orientation was firmly in place - he never once touched the men, it was the smell and feel of a woman he craved and it had become the primary force behind his escapes.

Both times he was caught and recycled, Weapon X trying to recoup the monetary loss in his creation as best they could. He would get put into groups for government work, but invariably he failed. He had no friends, no one who could stand to be near him. No one wanted to be seen with this reject, this scrawny young feral freak. Eventually they gave up on him and he was cycled out and dumped into a prison cell, left to rot on his own for over a year.

Wolverine shuddered with some remorse. Neither he nor anyone else had questioned Wild Child's disappearance from the regular Weapon X roster. Given his horrific behavior, it had come as no surprise really. It wasn't much long after that anyhow that Weapon X had moved on to their next experiment - the Adamantium bonding process. Logan had gone through it and went mad, destroying Weapon X on his way out and leaving that life behind for good. Wild Child was hardly his concern then or after.

It was now however, and he was seeing just what had happened to the poor boy now that Weapon X was done with him. They had taken him to a military prison, having nowhere better to take him. Here now was Wild Child, a creature with enhanced senses forced to live in a five by five cell, a solitary room. He was kept naked and fed scraps on a single metal plate. There were no facilities here, they saw he'd grown beyond that. They just hosed down his cell with him in it every night, not caring about the cold. His healing factor would keep him alive.

If Logan had thought Wild Child had gone mad before, it was worse now. He regressed to a child, a savage child that flung himself at the door each time anyone approached, his need for the comfort of others washed away in an uncontrollable desire to punish the world and all those in it for having even birthed him, for keeping him alive.

Wolverine was conflicted. He got that justice was being served, that Wild Child was now imprisoned for his crimes, but jeez, it was no way to really live. He knew the world was cruel, but this? Wild Child had tried so hard and his reward was a single stone cell, a plate of moldy food, and the hose. He swallowed down a swell of pity. Of course Logan had feelings like any other human, it was just that he had gotten good at suppressing them. He had to suppress them, it was his way of coping with his own inner beast. He was back under control when he realized he was missing the next chapter.

There was a crash and a boom, an explosion in the prison, and then Wild Child was looking up into the eyes of the strangest man he had ever seen. It was a lion man, a Dognan man. Jael looked down on him and smiled. "Oh, yes. This one will do just nicely."