Memories

Weapon

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men or any of their characters. Tora and Weapon X-ii are my own though.

She was dangerous. They all said that. Ever since Project: Eden had died, Weapon X-ii had become lethal. She had mauled a guard, went on hunger strikes, stood under a pile driver in a suicide attempt. No one dared enter her cell unless she was restrained. To move her, they required vast amounts of tranquillisers. Her healing peaked then dipped, her claws would cut through concrete yet shatter on wood. They said she was insane. And quietly, in the dark corners, they whispered that had been the plan all along.

Xii knew none of the whispers. All she knew was that she was responsible for Eva's death. She was the strong one, the one who had been able to survive the blizzard. But she had ordered Eva on and in doing so killed her greatest, her only friend. The claws that slid from her hands were special. Cuts from them didn't heal. She could smell the fluid that slid along their length and realized it halted her fast healing. Now, heavy gloves covered her hands, after yet another suicide attempt. Scars ran around her wrists, but they had taken to solving that. Cuts along the scars, perfect healing. No nasty marks to detract from the appearance of their perfect weapon. She wasn't beautiful. She was too wiry, her eyes haunted by ghosts of the past. But there was something about her fierce golden eyes, eyes that dug into you, confronted you. They were the eyes of a predator. The perfect predator. The one who could, who would hunt anything.

No child of 13 should have those eyes. The woman's eyes flickered, soft and golden. The eyes were liquid, full of love and caring. As different from the anger and hate in the girl's eyes as could be. The eyes of the woman were sad though. Sad in a way you could only be when you were so happy and then lost something dear to you.

The girl was bound. Her eyes were as filled with hate as they had been for the past two years. Twelve years to the day after being brought to the facility. It was her fourteenth birthday. She was strong. She was important. She'd realised that when Eva had been killed. Eva had been disposable. Xii was unique. No one else had her ability. No one but Weapon X. Once Xii had admired the man. The closer she had been to him, the better she had been treated. Now she hated him with a passion reserved only for him and the man who had killed Eva. And now they wanted her to become him. They were attaching the various drips and syringes, cowering beneath her fiery gaze. Despite the bonds, every man in the room knew that she could break free is she could be bothered to. They heard the argument coming closer.

"…but she is not ready. The process could kill, or at the very least cripple her. Her bones aren't strong enough…"

"Professor Robson, I suggest you follow through with your pet project. My employers are not in the habit of waiting for things they have paid for."

"She isn't strong enough. Weapon X was an adult when the process was initiated."

"Perhaps my employers will take their business elsewhere. I hear a group in the States has managed to clone Weapon X…"

"This project is superior to Weapon X or any other Weapon Plus project so far. She is capable of killing Weapon X, something ever other weapon has failed to do…"
"Spare me your excuses. I have come to inspect the goods. I'd better be impressed."

The Professor entered, followed by an imposing man, a stranger. Xii couldn't see his face but she didn't care. Nothing mattered. Anyway, she barely used her eyes anymore. Smell told so much more. The man was calm. He wasn't afraid and he had little scent. So different from the other men who came to talk to the Professor. They were subordinates. This man was a leader. His hand grabbed her face and turned it towards him. Her lips slid apart in a feral snarl, she snapped her head away. He laughed coldly.

"Start the process."

And she was lowered into the tank and her bones froze then burned.

Echoes of pain sounded inside the cavernous room. The woman recoiled, breaking contact. Pain… Fire and ice…breaking and strengthening at the same time. The girl was becoming unbreakable. But at the same time she was so fragile.

She lay there, cold, motionless. At first glance it looked as if she was dead. But a slight movement of the chest, a flicker of an eyelid betrayed her life. She was broken. The pain had seen to that. She had felt her bones trying to grow and the metal laced into them pulling it together. It had hurt so much. It still hurt. Deep down she knew the pain would never go away. She was broken but they called her unbreakable. She was the girl with an adamantium skeleton. The girl to equal Weapon X. The stranger had been the one to pull her back out. She had been half-dead. The words he had whispered ran through her head.

"There now. That didn't hurt too much, did it?"

She couldn't answer. She was dying. She had felt the poison in her bones, passing into her bloodstream and knew that unless her healing kicked in soon she'd succumb to the deadly bite. Finally she felt something happen and her laboured breathing calmed. She would live. She looked at the steel gloves and concentrated. She was still pain-drunk but the four hollow bone claws slid from her hands and through the holes in her finger bones. But the claws were bone no longer. Smooth metal tore through steel, flawless, unbreakable. Now angry, she shattered the chains with one swift strike and then proceeded to carve deep into the concrete the one thing she wanted more than anything.

LEAVE ME ALONE!

The woman sat back. Now for the test of Xii's humanity. Now to see if she was human or animal. Now to see how brave she really was.

Xii stood at the end of the training room in silence. She'd been unfit to train for weeks as her body had acclimatised to the metal that had bonded with it. The man had planned to come later to see how worthy she was of his mysterious employers' money. The door at the other end of the room opened and a man was pushed in. Her nostrils flared as she caught the scent. The scent that had permeated Eva's body. The scent of death. Eva's murderer. And they were giving him to her. She leapt forward, powerful and lithe. The man had a gun but the bullet wounds healed almost as soon as they tore her skin. The gun fell apart, cut lengthways in a single adamatium stroke and the claws were digging into the man's neck. A voice came across the speaker system.

"Kill him."

Xii looked into the eyes of the man she had hated for two years. And recoiled. The eyes could have been Eva's. Scared, confused and sad. So sad. Eva had looked at her like that. In that moment Xii made a decision. Her claws slid smoothly back into her hands and she offered her arm to the guard. Hesitantly, as if he didn't believe this was possible, he took her outstretched hand and she pulled him upright. No words were spoken but the meaning was clear.

"I forgive you. Killing is wrong."

The man tried a tentative smile that changed to a look of shock as a smoking bullet hole appeared in his chest. Xii turned, claws sliding out with a "Chikt" noise and then collapsed as the chips in her brain blocked the neuron pathways.

So she had listened to her heart. The woman sat back. Xii had chosen the darker of the two roads but would be rewarded in the end for her compassion. But the rewards would come later. First there would be pain.

She woke face down in darkness. Metal bands help down her wrists, waist and neck. Her back was bare and the room smelt of blood. The lights flared on, hurting her already sensitive eyes. There was a noise as a motor above her whirred into life and then she sensed it. Blades moving downwards. Towards her back. She tried to move but the bands held her tight. She couldn't turn her head, couldn't apply enough force to lever off the surgeons stretcher she was on. And then her back was ripped open from shoulder to hip, on both sides. An X of fire, permanent. She could smell the heal-halter on the blades. There was blood and lots of it. The swords stopped when they reached her spine, unable to slice through the unbreakable metal. But it was still deep enough to make her spasm, and scream. Screams that couldn't be heard. Who listens in the wilderness?

The woman's eyes were sad and angry at the same time. This child was suffering for her beliefs yet none were there to see her triumph. If people knew of her plight, would they respond? She knew but the answer puzzled her.

The scabs were cracking on her back. She knew they were permanent. But she welcomed them. She wasn't whole physically, like she had never been whole spiritually. The words from outside bore into her skull.

"You promised me a weapon. Not a spy, not a bodyguard. An assassin. One who would do anything we asked. And now you tell me she has a conscience. We're withdrawing our funding. The X-23 project is a better choice."

"You don't understand. Even if she is useless as a weapon, think of the breeding possibilities. We could splice her DNA with that of Weapon X, Sabretooth or any of the other weapons…"

"Don't make excuses. She's a coward. A weakling. We have no time for weaklings."

"Even if she refused to kill the man, she is still a perfect spy. She hacked the Pentagon security when she was six. That 23 project wasn't able to do that."

"How do you know about the X-23 Project?"

"We have sources…"

The voices faded as Xii snarled. Moved from weapon to breeding factory. A producer of new, better weapons. She'd rather die. In fact, if they gave her that status, she'd kill herself. She'd slit her throat with her own claws rather than be a factory. So why was she waiting. It would be so easy. One swift movement and all her troubles would be over. One stroke…

The claws slid out. Hand moving slowly. Why move slowly? Just get it over with! She moved carefully, determined not to make the guards notice her. The first smooth metal tip touched her throat. One movement. That would be all it took. So promising. Just to die and never be hurt again…

She glanced round, to make sure that no one was watching. Her hand dropped down in shock. A woman's face gazed out of the smooth metal wall, where Xii's reflection should be. The face was covered on the right side, a mask of ice in a curious shape. It looked like a lizard, but no lizard had that carved intelligence. And the woman's eye that was visible was sad. It was golden like Xii's but the pupil was silver, with a coiled serpentine creature writhing. She tilted her head and smiled slightly. The sad smile of someone who cared for Xii. Xii raised her head, tried to reach out to the woman, but she was no longer there. How?

The woman recoiled in shock. The girl had seen her. She had responded. She could see through the Eye. Was she truly so powerful? Even then. Oh, how much hope Xii would have if she knew the truth. Her power was stronger than it seemed. Her physical mutation was only the weakest of her gifts. She had a great power deep down, a power she didn't realize she had but had been using since she was a child.

Xii sat silently. The woman had been there. She was sure of it. She had been watching and had reached out when she was giving up. Perhaps someone did care… Perhaps, if she wanted to reach out again she would see her…

Questions, questions, always questions. But there was something to live for. She sat in silence, for days on end. She managed to get enough water, but by the end of the week there was no food left. It seemed like everyone had forgotten her. She was considering whether her teeth would halt her healing when, finally, the slot in the door slid open and the bowl of food slid in. She gave if a cursory sniff and then, happy that it wasn't drugged she began to eat, swiftly, with the movements of one who had went without food often and knew starvation well. There was fear there as well. The collar hummed, almost in readiness. She couldn't remove it. The hooks cut deep into her neck and the last attempt to cut it out had almost killed her. She finished and sniffed once more.

The Professor entered. He looked and smelt edgy. There was sorrow in his stance. Interesting. Suddenly she could read him like a book. There was another scent. One outside. One heavy, male and animalistic. The Professor opened his mouth.

"Weapon X-ii. Unfortunately, our funding has been removed. We have had to sell this facility. You are one of the experiments here and as such, you will remain. The new owner has promised that you will not be terminated but your training will continue or you may be released. Please meet your new master. Mr Creed, if you would come in…"

The man was tall. He had long blond hair and heavy gloves and clothes. There was a familiarity to the scent. Where had she smelt it before? It had been in a lesson. One of the scents she had been ordered to memorize. But the data banks were not responding. They often didn't when her brain had been shut down. It would take a while for the connections to join and until then she had lost her perfect recall.

Come on, come on, work you stupid pieces of metal. You're supposed to be useful. You're the result of over two million dollars of research and you don't work when I need you to.

The man, Creed, walked over to her and pulled her head back, pressing his fingers in the corners of her mouth, forcing it open. He gave her sharp canines a cursory glance and removed his hand, causing her head to drop in pain. He seized her wrist and twisted it until her claws slid out of her knuckles and she screamed in pain. He smiled slightly and walked out, murmuring as he did so.

"I'll buy everything."

The Professor looked at her, fear in his eyes. There was something else, a feeling that he cared about her. As if! He hated her. They all did. The scars on her back were proof of that. They still cracked when she moved but if she kept still there wasn't too much pain. She'd got used to there always being pain. She'd learned to live on it. Pain kept her sustained when food couldn't. She controlled the pain, as it controlled her. In a way, she was pain, pure animal pain. It defined her.

The woman once more relaxed, breaking contact with Xii. The pain had reached a point where it had been interfering with the memories. So many memories. So much knowledge still unused. Perhaps this had been a bad idea. Gazing into the past simply stirred up old fears and sorrows. But she had started this and she had to end it. She didn't know why she decided to read Xii's life like this. Perhaps… But no, she wouldn't be so child-like as to want to relive that. She was rambling again. Back to the subject. Back to the Eye.