Entry tags:

arrival, complete, day 14, faith lehane, wolverine

Enter the Wolverine...
Who: Wolverine and Faith
What: Wolverine's arrival
When: Day 14, noonish
Where: On the beach
Rating: R
Status Complete

The metal of the cage was cool against his back, and for the first time that night the sticky humid air of the bar didn't bother him. The roar of the crowd filled his ears, and drown out the whispers he could hear across the bar of the bartender, who was offering every underage girl who wandered in a chance to get booze if they were willing to 'go in the back' with him for a few minutes. The glare of the lights shone brightly in his eyes, and his vision was filled with only the ring, instead of men with wedding rings who stole glances down the shirts of waitresses or women who looked like they were there for the business of 'pleasure'. And all around the smell of excitement drowned out the stifling smell of old cigarettes, booze, piss, vomit, and fear, all laced with the stiffling smell of hormones that choked the air around him.

For the first time that night, Logan truly felt alive.

Across the ring stood his opponent. The man likely outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds, if not more, though it would look to the layman like most of it was actually carried in the massive belly that the man had. 'Skullcracker' certainly looked like your average couch potato and then some, his pale belly spelling out violently over his straining belt which looked like it might explode and send the oversized buckle flying into the crowd at any moment. Anyone else would have dismissed this man as a fat oaf who didn't have any place in the ring. Make it a quick fight and be done with it. Most people hadn't spent lifetimes training in martial arts and street fighting, both in the orient and in the Americas though. Wolverine had, and his body could remember the battles even if the experiments had left his mind less than clear about the actual details surrounding the fights themselves.

What most people wouldn't see would be the way the man handled himself, the light agility with which he moved. True, he was probably what most doctors would consider overweight, but it was in the way that a sumo wrestler was overweight. Large frame, lots of lean muscle. Logan had seen the way sumos fought during his trip through Japan. Not exactly pretty. Western culture made you think that they were fat men who liked to jump at each other and do belly bounces. The reality was more horrific. All that weight would come forward like a freight train, and if that didn't blow you over, you would likely get a face filled with a flurry of palm blows. And that was if you were lucky enough not to have one of them grab you and just toss you like you were an empty candy bar wrapper.

As the announcer yelled out their names, he heard a roar for 'Skullcracker' his opponent, and a few drunken cheers for him, people who had bet for the underdog. If Logan had his way they'd be going home richer, and him along with them. He'd staked his last few bucks on this fight, and he didn't really feel like forraging for food out in the Canadian snow this time of year, or hoping to find an abandoned shack to break into that might or might not have supplies. Not that it mattered, he'd gone without before, it was just a hell of a lot nicer to sleep in a hotel room than it was to go wild, at least when the mood hadn't consumed him to do so recently. Besides, the worst part about roughing it was the cold food, because in the snow it usually wasn't worth the effort to start a fire. His body was unusually resistant to the elements anyway, so he could survive a night without getting frost bite, the healing factor saw to that.

When the match started, Logan crouched low. Most of the time he'd have just come up to his opponent with a swagger and wiped the floor with them. With someone like Skullcracker though, it was just as likely that he'd get smacked in the face. And while Skullcracker had probably earned his name rightfully on those who had mistakenly thought him just a fat slob, Wolverine's adamantium laced skull was a bit tougher to crack than most. What would happen instead was the larger man would likely break his knuckles against it, which would turn the roaring crowd around him into a mutant hating lynch mob faster than Wolverine could unsheath his claws.

Logan remembered idly as he pushed off of the cage how a few towns back he'd underestimated his opponent and wound up in that very situation. He'd managed to get out of it before anyone got too badly hurt, but it wasn't easy when you were up against drunken Friends of Humanity wannabes who were too stupid to realize that you shouldn't fuck with a guy who had several inch long metal claws that came bursting out of his hands. Those who were smarter though had called the authorities, and it'd lead to a long night of Wolverine running through the Canadian wilderness, wading through half frozen rivers in order to throw the police dogs off of his scent. He certainly had no intentions of doing that tonight.

As expected, the larger man came forward like a steam roller, using his girth and strength to his advantage, attempting to slam Logan against the side of the cage like a pancake. The smaller man was a little to nimble for that and sidestepped the attack, though he was surprised when a fist nearly clocked him despite it. It was time to take the wind out of bubba's sails here, and give the crowd something to really cheer about. Sliding out of the way of a couple more punches, and then leaping to the side to avoid a two handed axe handle blow, Wolverine came up behind the man and slammed his fist into the guys' back, careful to avoid the kidneys. As it was the man would likely feel as if he'd been hit in the back with a baseball bat. All that was left would be to pretend to take a few hits to make it interesting, and then KO-

Logan barely even saw the hand that came up and clocked him, sending him flying and sailing against the bars of the cage, causing a grunt to fall from his lips. What the hell? His punch hadn't even managed to soften this guy up. Was he a mutant too? The thought of it caused a low growl to come from him as he sneered and bared his teeth at his opponent. No, that wasn't it... over the faint roar of the crowd he could hear his opponents heart slamming loudly in his chest like a jack hammer, and as his opponent turned, wolverine's vision caught diallated pupils that should have been shrunk under the bright lights in the cage. Whoever this guy was, he wasn't a hero, he was just doping... something akin to PCP from the looks of it. Meaning he wouldn't feel a blow Wolverine landed on him, and would likely fight until his heart exploded...

There wasn't much time to think as the man came charging forward with a bellow that sounded nearly inhuman, his mind addled by the drugs that were coursing through his system. Logan leapt to the side and skidded back, growling. If he didn't think quickly this guy was going to die, one way or another, and it was going to get blamed on him. He had to figure out a way to end this match without dealing the death blow, or Logan imagined he'd be hunted quite a bit worse than he'd been when he'd broken a few arms. People already didn't take well to him drifting in and out of town, the last thing he needed was his face plastered all over wanted posters everywhere...

Though he looked like your average thug brawler, Wolverine was anything but. He'd had more than a lifetime of experience training, perfecting each motion of his muscles until he'd come up with his own way of fighting. A lot of it had been lost when Weapon X had taken his mind from him, at least in part, but what the brain forgot the body remembered, and with adrenaline starting to course through his veins, Wolverine's mind opened up to all that he knew. The best way to non lethally take down an opponent when they were drugged out like this was... hell, it was a longshot, that's what it was.

Taking in a slow breath, Logan grinned at the man, and motioned for him to come attack. Not that it seemed like there was much of a need, the bigger man was already rushing him before he could put his arm down, and at the last minute Wolverine leapt up, grabbing the side of the cage, his knuckles going white as he gripped it violently, wrapping his legs around his opponent's throat. The larger man, clearly out of his head resorted to pounding on Logan's legs in a fury, which might have caused a lesser man to let go. Logan was just glad he was too drugged out to consider prying Logan's legs from around his neck, or else he might have actually been able to do it.

As it was there was a chorus of boos as the larger man tumbled down, and Wolverine dropped to the ground beside him, checking his pulse. Racing, but still alive. Growling he walked up to the bookie and snatched his money from the man's hand. "He's doping. Get him to a hospital before his heart bursts..." he ordered, and then made a B-line for the door, slipping on his jacket as he stepped out into the night. It was cold, but Wolverine didn't feel it, his anger kept him warm.

"Hey you! Stranger..." a drunken voice bellowed out behind him. Wolverine didn't turn. It was best to just keep walking, let the man yell all he wanted to. "No body coulda taken Skull out like that, unless they was a freak... HEY! I'm talking to you...."

Wolverine's pace increased, but the man was starting to run. At this point running wasn't an option, if he ran it would just induce that predatory instinct in the man to chase, like a dumb animal. Instead Wolverine slowly turned around, murder in his eyes. He just hoped the man wasn't drunk enough not to see it there. Unfortunately, from the looks of things he was.

Logan grunted as the black haired man slammed him up against a propane tank, smelling the sour smell of alcohol on the man's breath. "You're one of them freaks, aintcha?" the man stuttered. Logan snarled, but noticed the man's friends coming after him out of the corner of his eye. Best to end this quick and painless, before they wound up getting hurt.

"Listen, Bub..." Wolverine growled, holding up one hand, letting the man get a good view of his claws bursting from his wrist, "Why don't you go back inside before you get hurt?" It had the desired effect, the man let go almost immediately. However, his friends, also drunk, weren't exactly so bright. Logan saw one of them whip up a gun, and he tried his best to push the drunken man out of the way before his friend fired it, causing the propane tank to errupt violently in the night in a shower of fire and shrapnel.

---

Heat permeated the air around him, and as he stirred lightly, wolverine realized that he'd gone to sleep without the nightmares for once. How long had it been since he'd been able to sleep like that, without Stryker or Sabretooth's face haunting him in his dreams. Too many memories, blurred together into a single pool that was too muddy to make anything out of...

But as the pain stabbed at him he realized that he'd not actually been sleeping at all. Memories flooded back of those idiots, firing a gun near a propane tank. Wolverine's cold blue eyes snapped open, only to narrow slightly at the blue sky of the afternoon. His ears were still ringing, but over them he thought he could hear the roar of the ocean? Slowly he let his head fall to the side to stare at he waves of the tide, slowly pushing in and then pulling out, watching the water retreat from him idly as he wondered where in the hell he was. Had the Program gotten a hold of him again? Was he in some sort of bizarre labyrinth of memories that he couldn't quite remember, or was this someplace else? He couldn't concieve of those drunken bastards dragging him anywhere but jail...

And he still hurt. Looking down the realized there was a 6 inch piece of shrapnel slowly pushing it's way out of his chest as his tissue regenerated. Growling, he reached up and pulled it violently out of him, not caring that it did more damage than good, the wound was already sealing closed before he got it completely out of him. Likewise a few other places on him had been singed, and were healing, or had bloody shrapnel in them falling to the ground. The explosion had just happened... yet he was here, miles away from Canada. None of it made any sense whatsoever. A normal person might have thought he'd died, but Wolverine wasn't that easy to kill, and he doubted his healing factor would be working for him in the afterlife.

Standing up, Wolverine paused and looked around. It looked like a beach resort... and the smells here were strange too. Civilization was in that direction, but did he really want to go looking for signs of life, before he knew what they were? The urge to stalk filled him, but that might not be for the best either. As he stood though, he could see that his shirt and jacket had been singed to shreds. Growling, he peeled them off and threw them to the ground...

Great... what now?