Chapter 8

I could smell him before I saw him. That decaying stench was enough to set me off. I kept my eyes if front of me and leaned forward.

Sabretooth.

There was another blast of the dead scent...something was wrong. I slowed the bike, hoping to get a better chance of sensing it. If he really was prowling around after me, he wouldn't make his scent so noticable. I narrowed my eyes, brushing a strand of chestnut hair out of my face, and stopped the bike. I lifted my nose to the air. He was definetly was close, and there was no precautions taken to hide that fact. Obviously he didn't know I was so near...until I felt the scent dissapear in a snap. He had sensed me.

I got off the bike and pulled it to the shadows of the hill surounding the road. His scent was so faint I could barely recognize it anymore. But he wasn't running away, or his disgusting smell would have gone slower. He was just hiding it until he found an opening to attack. I smiled, an actual smile. Time to put my tracking skills to the test.

I had the uncanny ability to track anyone once I had their scent. It was like it was programmed into me. I had thought it just came with my powers, but Xavier had smashed that. He'd been able to see into my mind,...only as far as I would let him though. I didn't trust telepaths. He'd told me the reason I was able to catch scents quicker and hold them longer than Logan, (a thought that had me smirking when I realized how someone as proud as him would react to that), was because I had some sort of...advancement. I wasn't allowing him any farther into my mind, so he couldn't tell me what kind of 'advancement', though I surmised it was some sort of mutation-within-the-mutation.

I concentrated all my abilities, sight, hearing, smell, on the one scent of decaying meat. Immediatly I saw it. Like a trail of energy, his scent showed where he had been, stronger where he had stayed longer, almost gone were he had ran. I narrowed my eyes, concentrating even harder. I slid along my shadowy hideaway, following where his scent led me. I crept up the small slope, my feet trying to cause the least amount of noise possible. All of my power and energy was focused on the disgusting smell. If anything happened, I would have to rely on instinct alone.

I stopped with a jolt. This was wrong. The scent was...erratic now. It swerved almost impossibly. This wasn't...this scent wasn't caused by him, it was...like someone had simply taken something with his smell and dragged it. I realized too late. Something slammed me from behind, sending me soaring off the slope and landing with a thud on the road below. I groaned, but didn't spare a minute in pushing myself up.

It was almost as if I was in auto-pilot. My claws unsheathed themselves automatically, and I caught the scent of what had pushed me, the smell still on my back. A furious growl escaped my lips. I heard something to the right in the trees, then in the left, back to the right, in the center, far away, just at the edge...like whoever was there was testing my defenses, trying to find a weak spot. I wasn't letting that happen. I focused all my energy on that ethereal scent, almost reptilian. That is, until a blinding light almost ran me over.

A heard a loud engine, and saw a sleek black car pull over quickly. That distracted me for a minute, and the prowler found it's opening. It leaped on me, sending me to the ground. I felt a sharp pain to the side of my face, as one adamantium sheathed claw sliced my cheek. An enraged roar rose from my chest as I thrashed a claw toward where the scent was eminating.

A shriek like skidding tires came from my attacker. I opened my eyes, which were burning with rage. My assailant was covered in shimmering blue scales, what little hair she had slicked back. One thick slice to her side was pouring blood.

She didn't waste time in her retreat as she darted behind the trees, almost too fast for my eyes...but not for my nose. I raced forward, blind rage coursing through my viens. There were drops of blood where she'd slithered through the trees. I heard the swift sound of rushing air behind me, and my right hand flew out instinctively. Another shriek, and the sound of a body falling on crunching leaves.

I turned on the attacker, who was now the victim. The gash on her side was opened more from her running, in addition to a new chunk I'd cut out on her shoulder. My eyes burned with pure animal fury. I raised my arm for the fatal blow. I thrust it down toward her heart, but was thrown backward.

It was like a steel barrier had slammed against my front, sending me back once more. My head hit a streetlight pole, stopping my soar through the air. I growled, half from pain, half from anger. I threw myself up and started forward. But I couldn't move.

Logan's head swerved as a body was thrown through the air. There was a metallic thud as its head hit a lamp post. He ran forward, ready to attack. But stopped short when he saw Adrian. Her eyes were hatred, an animalistic look of fury imprinted on them. He was almost frightened by what he saw. Her green eyes had always been sharp, as though she could see into the sould of whomever she was looking at, but they had never had the look of pure primal anger that they had now.

She leapt up, causing Logan to jump back. The look in her eyes was one that burned with a fierce hatred like he had never seen. She thrust her body forward, ready to attack once more, but stopped, as if she'd been frozen. Logan realized a second too late what had happened.

My lip curled in a scorching feroscity I had never experienced before. I couldn't move. It felt as though my entire body was held in place by titanium bonds, allowing for no movement but shallow breaths. Someone was approaching from out of the forest, a distinctive metallic scent coming off their skin. My hands were shaking with rage, unable to move, unable to attack. Unable to defend.

I stood there, all my rage bottled up inside my head. Ready to crack, ready to explode. My gaze moved to a slight movement in the edge of the trees. Within seconds, a man appeared, striding with pride and assurance. He was wearing a silver suit, with what looked like a flowing cape behind it. A battered helmet was placed on his head. Through the dim light, I could see that one arm was slightly raised.

"So this is the female is it? A matched set?" I couldn't understand what he was talking about. Matched set? I heard a growl behind me, and my chest filled with a new fury. I was sure it was Sabretooth. Behind the man, the blue reptilian mutant appeared. The gash wasn't bleeding anymore, but looked hideous either way. So they had me cornered? Ready to be killed, or manipulated, or whatever it was Xavier said they'd do.

The silver-clad man turned toward the growl coming from behind me. I waited, sure death was around the corner. But instead of calling to his beast-like comrade, he asked:

"Why is it that you never learn, Logan?" I gasped within my head, Logan? The ancient mutant raised his other hand, and Logan seemed to be pulled forward, by some invisible, painful tether. The metallic scented mutant sighed with a sarcastic smile. "Pride cometh before the fall, Logan. I'm afraid pride is something you have an excess of."

Within a second, Logan was thrown toward the ground by invisible hands. He started writhing, snarls of fury mixed with gasps of pain errupting from his mouth. My chin trembled, half with anguish and half with a sharp ferocious hatred. My head filled with the sense that it had been filled with a boiling water, searing the inside as if it was being slowly roasted. My lip curled with another snarl.

The pressure that had been in my head built. It pushed, then rammed, then attacked the inside of my head, fighting to get out. The pressure in my head pushed outward, harder, harder, harder until it was about to burst with heat and pain. I shook, starting with my head and going down to my chest. The fury that had been bottled up had grown to astronomical proportions. And then, the bottle broke.

It was as if the pressure was surging out of my head, a tidal wave of blind rage. I heard a thunderous crash, a crack, another shreik, a snarl, a hoarse yell. My titanium bonds broke. I opened my burning eyes. The sleek black car was a twisted heap of metal, a nearby tree had a trunk almost snapped in half. Both of the assailants were gone, but a shallow blood splatter was trailed, obviously where the reptile had slithered to her escape.

The last of the pressure inside my head flooded out. My tensed muscles slowly became weak, and I collapsed. My energy had drained from me, leaving my body slumped against the streetlight I had hit earlier. A small drop of blood trickled out from a deep cut from my forehead and into my eye. My breaths became shallow, one eye hazy, the other tinted red with blood. I gave a gasp, trying to get my last air out. Once again, my already disabled vision became ridden with black blotches.

With one last gasp, I slid down to the ground.