Outsider Chronicles: Three Claws

Getting reborn into a world with crazy people with powers is annoying. Getting reborn as a character considered a joke by everyone is worse. That said, I never in a million years imagined that I'd Trigger with a Healing factor and metal claws. Oh, and I'm also apparently a character whos considered to be a joke by most. Joy.

This is, once again, an idea thats been rattling around in my head for a while. Should be interesting if nothing else. Enjoy!

Chapter 1

Soooo, my death was lame. I mean, getting killed by a box full of paint cans falling on your head isn't exactly something to brag about. I knew I hated art for a reason. Still, at least I got a new life out of it. Oh yeah, I ended up getting reincarnated. I'm still not entirely sure why, but after I died, I woke up again as a baby.

Growing up was simultaneously easy and incredibly frustrating. What? I'd like to see any of you sit through pre-school again without tearing your hair out. Still, I've learnt from my mistakes, so I got through school with no problems and high grades. Or at least, that was the plan. See, the world I had been reborn into wasn't exactly normal, not when there were people flying around in silly costumes. Yeah, I'd been reborn into a world full of crazy people with superpowers. Unfortunately, it wasn't a world like Marvel or DC where the Heroes always win. On no, I wasn't that lucky. The world I'd been reborn into was that of Worm. To make matters worse, I was born into a family who lived in Brockton Bay. Fuck my life.

In all seriousness though, despite living in Brockton, life wasn't to bad. My Mum was a single parent and, despite occasionally struggling to make ends meet, had a decent enough job that we could live relatively comfortably in a decent part of town. I had no idea who my Dad was and Mum had no interest in telling me who he was. When I asked, she always scowled and told me that it didn't matter because 'there was no way in hell that bastard was getting anywhere near us'. I got the feeling he was really bad news.

Annoyingly, despite being a rather healthy and active person in my last life, for some reason, I was rather sickly as a child this time through. Not to the point that I was constantly hospitalized, but enough that I missed a lot of school. That meant that, despite my brains, I wasn't able to get into Arcadia when Highschool rolled around thanks to protracted absences. Even more annoyingly, after I turned 15, I suddenly stopped getting sick all together. Mum didn't seem surprised though, apparently it was an odd trate of our family, being prone to sickness as kids, gaining a bullet proof immune system in our teen years and then never getting sick again in our lives. Combine that with unusually long lifespans and tendency to be incredibly hard to put down in a fight and you have a particularly dangerous family who many have confused as Parahumans in the past, although those traits went as far back as the 19th century, so that was a tad unlikely.

Where was I? Oh yeah, high school. It was pretty much what you'd expect for Winslow, an absolute hellhole with blatant gang activity going on in every corridor, useless teachers and chronic bullying issues. Now, I'd like to say I did something about them, but the truth is, I have no idea what I could do. Nothing permanent thats for damn sure. Oh I tried, I really did, but it didn't take long for me to realize that I was wasting my time and, honestly? It wasn't really in my nature to waste my time helping people who couldn't be helped. Thats not to say I was a nutcase who'd let someone die or be seriously hurt if I could stop it and I did still occasionally step in if something went too far, but I certainly wasn't about to start going out of my way for others because of a bit of name calling.

That said, there was actually surprisingly little bullying that I had any interest in stopping. After all, the Gang kids could take care of themselves and if they didn't want to end up getting a kicking by the rivals after school, they shouldn't go out alone or, better yet, not be in a gang in the first place. Then there was Taylor. Urg, she was responsible for more headaches than my schoolwork and thats saying something!

My original intention had been to try and befriend her right of the bat, with the intent being to make sure that she had someone to back her up. Unfortunately, she was still reeling from Emma giving her the boot and politely told me to get lost. After that, I think she either thought I was in on the whole thing or a creepy stalker considering she wouldn't talk to me, despite my best efforts. Eventually, I gave up. I couldn't do much if she wouldn't let me after all.

That said, I wasn't about to let her go through what she did with the Locker and I already had a few plans that would let me deal with it. Unfortunately, all those plans went out the window and were mostly forgotten thanks to what happened during the christmas hols of my second year. Yeah, that close to Taylor's Trigger. What happened you ask? I got mugged.

Admittedly, thats not entirely uncommon around here considering the crime ridden nature of the city. The difference here was that the mugging in question was also a Merchant 'recrutement' operation. In other words, they planned to stick a needle full of shit in me to try and get me hooked on it. Unfortunately for them, my weird biology made it impossible for anyone in my family to become chemically addicted to drugs, although we still experienced the highs and lows. With that in mind and concidering I didn't fancy finding out what that stuff would actually do to me, I was NOT making it easy for them. It took three of the bastards to pin me down and even then, I wasn't about to stop fighting.

"Arg, stay still cocksucker!" snarled the apparent leader of the pack as I nearly punched him in the face with my flailing, "We're not gonna hurt you! We're just trying to make you feel better."

I glared at him.

"Fuck you!" I snarled, "I will not be another statistic! Now let me the fuck GO!"

I swung my arm again, my rage finally boiling over as I wished that I carried something that I could have used to stab these bastards. But no, I just had to be a decent member of society, ignoring the fact I lived in the less than pleasant side of town and attended a school where every other student carried some kind of weapon! Damn it all!

*Shnick*

I let out a yelp as a sharp stabbing pain shot up my arm accompanied by the sound of a knife being drawn. Then, the thug I'd swung at screamed as the 12 inch claws that had just extended from my knuckles carved deep cuts across his face. He stumbled back, dropping the syringe as everything else froze. The goons holding me looked between their boss and me and my claws as blood slowly dripped from their tips. Their reaction was rather predictable.

"SHIT, HES A CAPE!" yelled one of them and all three released me at the same time.

I scrambled to my feet as the four Merchants booked it, leaving nothing but a smashed syringe of whatever they planned to stick in me and a few drops of blood. I was momentarily tempted to chase them down and knock them out, but quickly discarded it in favour of examining my new claws. Three, twelve inch long blades of gleaming metallic white metal emerged from each knuckle. I gently pressed my thumb to the edge of one to test the edge and immediately pulled it away as it easily parted the skin. They were razor sharp. A tingling feeling in my thumb made me look at it, just in time to see the injury seal up in less than a second.

Now, I'd always been a fast healer, but never to that degree! I examined my thumb for a moment, before my attention slipped to my knuckles. Hmm, I wonder..?

I clenched my fist and, with an instinctive flex of a muscle I didn't know I had, another set of claws shot out of my knuckles with a low shnick sound and a short jab of pain.

"Huh, thats...interesting," I muttered, more confused than anything.

I'm pretty sure that little fight wasn't enough to cause a Trigger event. Maybe if I got jabbed I'd have believed it, but as it was, it was just too weak to even cause a Trigger in a Second Gen Cape. Plus, there was the fact I already had a rather unnatural biology thanks to whatever it was that made my family bizarrely resistant to injury and disease.

The sound of a motorbike stopping outside the alley drew me from my thoughts and I quickly sheathed my claws and turned around. I half expected it to be Armsmaster or Miss Militia, but instead it was a normal looking, if massive, man in a muscle shirt that looked like it was a size to small, a leather jacket, jeans, cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. He had black hair sticking out from under his hat and a rather impressive set of sideburns. He smelt of the wilderness and cigar smoke. I frowned. Wait, smelt? How the hell did I know that?

"Hey kid, you OK?" asked the man, his voice carrying a hint of a Canadian accent.

"Um, yeah, I'm fine," I said, still trying to figure out where the whole smell thing came from.

The man raised an eyebrow. I squirmed under his glare.

"I just got into a fight with some idiots," I eventually blurted out, "I'm fine, honestly!"

The man snorted.

"Well, if your sure," he said, "Hey, could you tell me how to get to Arcadia from here? Its been a while since I've come here and I'm a bit lost."

"Um, sure," I said and quickly gave the man directions.

"Thanks kid," he said as he mounted his bike, "Be careful heading home."

"I will," I said, "But um, shouldn't you be wearing a helmet?"

The man just laughed and roared away.

"Well, that was odd," I muttered as I turned and started walking home.

Now if only I could figure out why he seemed so familiar…

That question bothered me for the rest of the holiday as I experimented with my new abilities. I quickly came to the conclusion that my ability to feel pain had taken a massive hit after I realized that I'd been testing my healing factor by cutting deeper and deeper gashes in my arm without batting an eye. I could still feel pain, but it was muted and only really existed to let me know that I'd been hurt. Considering I could apparently heal from nearly anything in seconds, that was perfectly fine with me! I'd also found that my claws were incredibly sharp and able to cut through anything I had access to, so long as I put enough force behind it.

I'd also discovered, during my experimentation with my healing factor, that the bones in my arm were composed of the same metal as my claws after I accidentally cut myself down to the bone. The wound still healed in seconds, but it was enough for me to catch the glimpse of silvery-white metal. From there, it didn't take much to conclude that the rest of my skeleton was likely composed of the same substance.

The final difference I'd discovered was the fact that my senses had skyrocketed. I could hear a pin drop on the other side of the house, identify and track things by scent and had near perfect vision, along with incredible night and distance vision. Combine that with my claws, healing factor and metal skeleton and I was seriously considering calling myself Wolverine.

By the time I'd finished my experiments, it was time to head back to school and I spent most of the first day back trying to figure out why it felt like I was forgetting something and adjust to having enhanced senses in a terrible high school with more than its fair share of Merchants and addicts. Seriously, I thought they stunk before, now it was like being locked in a classroom with a dead skunk.

It wasn't until I was walking to maths while wondering why I hadn't seen Taylor yet that morning that my brain decided to stop being slow and throw the memory of what I'd forgotten to the fore. Then again, the stench of rotting blood and human waist leaking from Taylor's locker might have also had something to do with it.

"Bollocks!" I yelled as I turned on my heel, unsheathed my claws and sliced through the lock with ease, leaving three gashes in the metal.

The door immediately fell open, allowing a flood of dirty brown sludge and one catatonic girl to spill out. I quickly crouched down next to Taylor and pressed two fingers to her pulse. Her heart rate was all over the place, her breathing was rapid and her skin was an unhealthy shade of blue and flickering. I frowned. Wait, what? I took a closer look and, sure enough, Taylor's body seemed to be rippling and shifting between her usual pale skin tone and dark blue. Then it went black, then purple and back to blue, followed by spikes emerging from her limbs and then apparently turning into metal. Well, thats not normal.

The sound of boots on the plastic floor made me realize that I'd just used my claws in a crowded hall, making me snap my head up, expecting to see everyone staring at me. Instead, I was met with the extremely eery sight of everyone in the hall standing stock still, as if they'd all been touched by Clockblocker. The only exception was a small group slowly making their way towards me, led by...a bald man in a wheelchair. Um, what? The rest of the small group consisted of a dark skinned woman with white hair, a man with ruby sunglasses and the same man who had asked me for directions during the holidays. I repeat, um, WHAT?!

The leader smiled slightly at my apparent confusion.

"Don't worry about your classmates Mr Kinney," he said, "I simply felt it was better that you and Miss Hebert's abilities do not become public knowledge."

I licked my lips, feeling distinctly uncomfortable.

"How do you know our names?" I asked, "And who are you?"

The man smiled and lent forwards in his chair.

"My name is Professor Charles Xavier," he said, "And I think we have a lot to discuss."

Well, that was certainly interesting. And to think, my original intent was to just use Wolverine's powers as a base with no other characters appearing...eh, this should be fun!

Yes, Mutants are a thing, but don't expect me to use any particular version of any character, especially when you consider the differences the existence of Parahumans will have made. The existence of Mutants is technically a secret at the moment, but only in so far as the general public are unaware of the existence of superpowered people who powers don't come from a Trigger Event. Why? Paranoia mostly, as well as the fact that most Mutants give about as much a rats ass about fighting crime as everyone else. Oh sure, there are probably a few Mutants on both sides of the law, but since their powers don't come with a compulsion towards conflict, most just want to live out their lives.

Our hero, James Kinney, powers are essentially identical to Wolverine's, with the obvious exception of his metallic bones. Of course, unlike Wolverine, his aren't essentially indestructible, but they are much stronger than most and have similar properties to titanium. Plus, since their biological metal, if they are damaged, his healing factor can quickly fix them.

And I'm done. Don't forget to leave a review!

EDIT changed James' surname. No real reason to do it, I just like the idea better.