Chapter 2 "Hooks and Claws"
"Get on the bike!" Logan shouted for the third time in a row.
"I don't see that happening." Sky said, her voice icily calm. Who the hell does this big ape think he is, she thought nastily? No one orders me around.
"You need to come see Hank. He can run some tests and…"
"No way! Hell no!" Sky backed away, her arms outstretched in front of her. "No doctors and no tests." Sky watched Logan study her for a moment before speaking again.
"You have nightmares, don't you?" He asked, cocking an eyebrow. Sky just shook her head and stared down at the ground. It was true; she had terrible nightmares at least twice a week. Images of her laying on a hard surface, some kind of operating table, and needles poking into every orifice her skin; she heard her own screams, and the screams of another person. She could always hear him screaming too. And that's when she'd hear it…metal slicing through bone.
"Wolverine, NO!" And then she would wake up in a pool of sweat, never able to go back to sleep.
"Just come with me," Logan pleaded, breaking her train of thought. His voice was so soft and filled with concern that it made Sky flinch. Why should a complete stranger care enough to want to help her? Then again, she thought, he doesn't feel like a stranger. "I can't promise a miracle, but maybe we can help you…" Logan held out his hand, offering it to Sky. The gesture seemed odd for a man like that. Too gentle, Sky thought, and much too gentle for me.
Sky had long come to terms with what she was. She knew that she was dangerous; a killing machine. Nothing could stop her, nothing could kill her. Often she felt like she had nothing inside her but despair and rage. She didn't just feel like a mutant. She felt like an animal.
"You think you can help me find out who I was? Why I can't remember?" She asked, her voice and scent revealing her doubt in Logan to truly do so.
"I sure as hell can try." Logan replied honestly.
"Alright Wolverine, I'll go with you." Sky said, figuring that she really had nothing better to do. It did register with her that she was about to go God knows where with a complete stranger, but she wasn't afraid. I could take him, she decided.
She grabbed her bag that she'd stashed behind the dumpster beside the bar and climbed on the back of the bike. He climbed on in front of her and started the bike, giving it a good rev. He glanced over his shoulder at the woman behind him.
"Call me Logan."
………0………
"STORM! HANK!" Logan yelled at the top of his lungs as soon as he and Sky entered the mansion.
"Who lives here?" Sky asked, in aw of the huge house that she had just walked into. Sure, Sky had seen houses this size---maybe even bigger--- but always from a distance. She'd never actually been inside one of these monsters!
Sky had lived in all sorts of places. Dirt cheap hotels, trailer parks, the occasional card board box. She'd even pitched a tent out in the middle of the woods for a few months once; living on the forest life and taking baths in the river she was camped near. She did what she had to do to survive…even things she wasn't always so proud of. She was shaken from her thoughts as a young girl---couldn't of been over eighteen--- came sauntering down the stairs.
"Logan, what's all the racket?" The girl asked with a thick southern accent, eyeing Sky suspiciously. Sky cocked an eyebrow.
"Where's Storm and Hank?" Logan asked briskly, ignoring the girls question.
"We're right here!" A woman with snow white hair snapped in Logan's direction as she plowed down the stairs.
"Yes, quite," Sky's mouth flew open at the site of a huge, fuzzy, blue…person she assumed was Hank walking down the stairs quite gracefully, dressed in flannel pajamas and slippers. Sky could barely stop herself from laughing. She'd seen her fair share of strange mutants, but never one who looked quite like Hank.
"What is the big emergency Logan?" The blue fizzy man asked Logan, peering over the tops of a pair of square lenses glasses. Logan merely grunted in Sky's direction. All eyes quickly were averted toward her, making her immediately stiffen.
"Show them," Logan nudged Sky roughly with his elbow. She glared at him.
"How do I know I can trust any of you?" She asked, her eyes narrowing. Sky wasn't scared of much simply because of the fact that her mutation protected her against almost anything, but she knew from experience that some mutants were good, some were bad, and some would love to get their hands on her combat ability. She just hadn't figured out what kind of mutants these folks were yet.
The woman with white hair---apparently Storm---walked carefully up Sky and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. Sky flinched. She wasn't used to being touched. She tried not to tense up, thinking this woman could just be trying to be comforting, but Sky couldn't help but get automatically defensive. Storm must have sensed Sky's apprehension because as soon as the hand was there it was gone again.
"This school is a safe haven for all mutants who need a place to go," she said, smiling kindly at Sky. "That's our mission. I assume you're here because you're in trouble?" Sky shook her head, looking at Storm, extremely confused.
"Wait a second, this place is a school?"
Storm looked at Logan and then sharply back to Sky.
"I don't understand. How do you find this place if you didn't know what it was?" Storm immediately backed away from Sky as if she was some sort of threat. If she only knew, Sky thought, and gave Storm a little smirk.
"I brought her here, so cool your jets," Logan explained, then turned to Sky. "Show them." He commanded softly. Sky inwardly sighed. She didn't figure she had much of a choice. If these people want me like the last group did, I'll have one hell of a time fighting my way out of this one, Sky thought, and then unsheathed her claws.
Sky heard a collective gasp come from Storm, Hank, and the girl who was still standing on the stairs as her deadly hooked claws came out from between her knuckles.
"Oh my God Logan!" The girl exclaimed, holding on to the railing for support from the shock.
"Remarkable! Simple remarkable!" Said Hank, whipping off his glasses, staring open mouthed at the claws.
"Rogue," Storm jerked her head toward the girl on the stairs, her voice hard and urgent. "Go wake up the rest of the team and get them into my office now. Tell them it's an emergency." The girl---Rogue, Sky supposed--- nodded and bounded up the stairs as quickly as possible.
Sky retracted her claws, looked over Logan, and asked, "Did I miss something?"
………0………
Sky found herself being ushered into a dim lit office, sitting in an over stuffed arm chair, being stared at by six teenage looking kids.
"This better be important," grumbled a yellow pajama clag Asian girl.
"Oh, it is. Trust me." Rogue answered, still staring wide eyed and fearfully in Sky's direction. Sky rolled her eyes and slouched down in the chair. They were waiting for Storm to come back into the room after going to the restroom so that they could start this little pow-wow.
The Asian girl eyed Sky suspiciously. "Who's the chick?" She asked, giving Sky the once over.
"She's the reason that I asked Rogue to go get you all." Storm said as she entered the room, still dressed in her pajamas. Sky almost laughed at how ridiculous this whole scene was. Everyone looked extremely serious and also extremely ridiculous because Logan and Sky were the only two dressed in the room.
"Sky, this is the rest of the team." Storm said, gesturing toward the teenagers huddled together on the couch. "You've already met Rogue," Sky motioned toward the girl Sky had seen on the stairs. Fairly young, Sky thought, and also noticed the two odd white streaks in her hair that stood out quite boldly. Next Sky was introduced to a young man sitting next to Rogue. "This is Bobby Drake, also known as Ice Man." Bobby had a very boyish looking face, but very sad eyes. Eyes that had seen too much for their age. Sky felt sorry for the kid. She found that the mouthy Asian girl was Jubilee, the small framed mousy brown haired girl next to her was Kitty, and the two remaining young men were named Warren(also called Angel) and Peter( also known as Colossus). Sky shook her head and stood up.
"Hold it, what the hell is this 'team of yours' anyway? If it's what I'm thinking, I don't want any part of it." Sky stood firmly in place, her fists balled up in her jacket pockets.
"Sky," Storm sighed, sinking down into a hefty leather chair behind her large cherry wood desk. "We are the X-Men. We are a group of mutants dedicated to preserving the well fare of humans and mutants alike." She explained.
"You're kidding, right?" Sky snickered. "And I thought this was a school."
"This is a school, my dear," piped up the big blue furry guy, Hank. "Xavier's school for Gifted Youngsters is an institution founded to help young mutants understand and control their powers. After finishing their formal education here, they either choose to rejoin the world as educated young people, or stay on here as a part of the school, or possibly become a member of the X-Men."
"This is possibly one of the stupidest things I've ever heard in my life!" Sky laughed loudly. "Seriously, you think you can save the world with a bunch of teenagers? You're out of your minds!" Sky couldn't believe what she was hearing. Sky had seen what other kind of mutant groups and organizations were out there, and it was almost laughable to think that these little X-Brats could stand a chance against any of them.
Logan sighed heavily, remembering when he himself had thought the exact same thing.
"Look, I don't expect you to buy this because when I was first dragged here I didn't either. But we can help you, whether you believe it or not, and alls we're asking for is a chance."
"With all do respect, but what is so important about this girl that it couldn't of waited till morning? Personally, I don't like being woken up in the middle of the night just to be insulted by some girl who looks homeless!" Jubilee jumped up, glaring dangerously at Sky. Sky cocked an eyebrow.
"Who you callin' a girl, kid?" Sky asked, giving the girl a smirk, almost daring her to say another word.
"You can't be much older then us." Bobby said, coming to his friends' defense.
"Looks can be deceiving." Sky warned. Bobby shut his mouth. Sky didn't have much patience for uppity kids.
"Sky," Storm cleared her throat, glaring daggers at Logan, who was chuckling loudly next to Sky. "Why don't you show the rest of the team what you showed us down stairs?" Sky rolled her eyes. She whipped out her claws, and there were more shocked faces and open mouths gaping.
"Holy shit!" Jubilee exclaimed. Sky retracted her claws.
"What's the big goddamn deal with my claws?" Sky asked. Sky knew she was different from other mutants. She was sure that not all mutants woke up naked in the woods with little to no memory of the life she'd had before that moment. She was sure not all mutants were plagued with the kind of nightmares that she had. And yeah, she figured she was the only one with claws, but surely these people had seen something a bit more shocking than her!
"Sky, how far back does your memory loss go?" Logan asked her, motioning her to sit back down. Sky sat and looked up at Logan.
"Oh, I'm not sure. Probably about seventeen to eighteen years. Why?" Logan sighed and kneeled down in front of her. God, Sky thought, his eyes are beautiful. A strange mix of green, gold, and brown.
"Because that's about as far back as mine goes too." Sky eyed him curiously.
"You can't remember who you are either?" Sky raised an eyebrow, her face telling Logan she didn't buy it. Logan just shook his head.
"I've found out just a little, but for the most part no. I can't remember anything beyond waking up, covered from head to toe in blood, out in the middle of damn near no where….with these." And that was when Logan slowly unleashed his razor sharp knife like claws. Sky's mouth flew open.
"I'm not the only one…That's how I know your name!" Logan nodded.
"You are one of three that we know of, Sky." Hank said softly.
"What happened to us?" Sky asked, her voice hard and her face unreadable. Logan proceeded to tell her all that he could about Weapon X.
It took Sky a few minutes to digest what Logan had just told her. Someone named William Stryker, who was now dead along with some chick with crazy ass fingernails, had tried to turn her into some super solider.
"I volunteered for this?" Sky asked, her voice filling with rage as Logan told her that Stryker had told him, moments before his death, that Logan had volunteered for the procedure.
"We can't be for sure who else volunteered or who was forced." Hank tried to comfort her. "Only Stryker could tell us that."
Sky shrugged, trying to blow it off. It didn't matter, she decided. I am what I am and I've dealt with it all.
"At least now I know." She said firmly. A few moments passed before anyone spoke.
"Sky, how have you been managing all these years?" Storm asked, curiosity getting the best of her. She wondered how someone who looked barely twenty, had no social security number, no identification of any kind besides a pair of dog tags, could survive in the world.
"I get by." She muttered. These people don't have to know what I've done, she thought. They don't need to know who I am.
"Would you agree to let me run a few tests on you? Nothing major, I promise." Hank asked nicely. Sky shrugged.
"I guess…"
"Splendid!" Hank jumped up and clapped his hands loudly together.
"We'll find you a room and get started as soon as we've all gotten some rest!"
Authors Note: So, sorry it's taken so long to update. I'm disappointed; I've only gotten two reviews so far. Thank you very much to my two reviewers though. I hope that more people will read and enjoy my story! I think it has an interesting story line and plot to it. I'm usually a Rogan shipper, but this idea just popped into my head, and I wondered what I would be like as a mutant, so I made up my own character. I beg of you all, R&R! Writing fanfic's actually help with my occasional bouts of depression lol I don't really know why, but they do. Again, thank you to my two loyal readers!! Hope more of you read and review as well!!!!!