by Cycnus
while using the other hand to hold your guts in your belly ain't no girl
scout picnic. Especially when you're a big, three hundred pound bastard like
me. But what the fuck, no pain, no gain, right? My healing factor was already
kicking in and the mission had gone as sweet as a virgin's cunt up until
then.
Getting into the lab was pathetically easy. Those four security guys deserved
the gutting I gave them -- on the job assessment by your friendly,
neighbourhood Sabretooth. Getting the files was even easier. The computer
room workers didn't even scream that much and Rae's codes worked like a wet
dream. The files uploaded to the second and I was going to be free and clear
in minutes. It was too fucking easy. That's when the alarms went off.
I knew I hadn't fucked up. It was the security alarms in the west wing of the
building that were doing all the squealing. I just had to get out in the
chaos. Couldn't have planned it better myself, huh? HAH. The west wing of the
lab contained more than just white-coated eggheads. It also held their
'experiments'. The six hundred pound, maximum security kind. I'd already
experienced the level of security these guys maintained around here so, when
I saw that huge purple fucker barrelling towards me, all teeth and horns, I
was more surprised by how they'd managed to keep him locked up for so long.
Bastard could fight too. I couldn't tell you for sure why they'd made him but
he would have livened up a Saturday night wrestling match by eating a few
hundred fans. But he wasn't too bright. After tussling with the big dope for
a few seconds, I'd worked out how to do him and he went down in a flood of
surprisingly bright red blood. It was his tail that got me. Gutted by the
death throes of some egghead's genetic fantasy. Fuck.
But that wasn't the worst of it. I was feeling kinda heady from the blood
stench and my own blood loss when I smelt him: Ugly Fucker Mark One's bigger,
nastier brother. He was heading my way. Fast. I dragged my hide into the
nearest air vent, dropped down three floors and crawled for the nearest
corridor with a nearby exit.
So here I am, holding my guts and punching out the air vent panel so I can
fall head first onto a cheap vinyl floor, stinking of disinfectant and
medical waste. Funny how the scents always get to me more when I'm injured.
Maybe it's the healing factor kicking in. Maybe that's why I can smell Logan
before he can smell me. He's coming up the fire exit stairs with a few
soldier boys. He's on point, careful and taking his time, but he can't smell
me. He isn't pissed off enough. I hear the door at the top of the stairs
creak a little and suddenly he's picked up my scent. Everything in him goes
up a few degrees and I can't help but laugh. Fuck that hurt but it's all the
better to play possum with real pain. Let the runt and his soldier boys go
play with Big 'n' Nasty while ol' Sabretooth heads for the sunset. Good plan.
And here Logan comes, right on cue, low along the wall. He stops when he sees
me but I'm hardly faking it and it shows. I sit up slowly against the wall.
He signals the others to hold still and moves cautiously towards me.
"Vic," he growls low, sniffing at me warily.
"Runt," I reply, making sure he hears the rattle in my lungs real well. He's
only going to be believe I'm about as half as injured as I make out, so I
have to play it up three hundred percent.
"Get caught with your claws in the cookie jar?" He crouches just out of my
reach.
"Something like that." I grin, giving him a perfect view of my canines while
he tries to work out how much of the blood covering me is actually mine.
"What--" Logan begins but stops when the toy soldiers come marching up the
hall.
"I told you to stay put." Logan stands up and pops his shiny claws, keeping
an eye on me while he faces up to a soldier-boy colonel.
"Is this the creature?" The colonel looks down his nose at me and I choke
back a laugh. "He looks finished."
"He's called Creed and looks can be deceiving." Wolverine turns his back on
the colonel to crouch just out of my reach again. He doesn't see the look
that comes over the colonel's face. "So where is it?"
"Dead." I grin again and wink at the colonel, who goes as pale as a split
bone.
Logan shakes his head. "Off your game, Vic? Security cameras show a seven
hundred pound behemoth wrecking the offices on the eighth floor."
"So what are you asking me for, boy? You're the hero. Go be heroic." I wince
for effect. Logan grins.
"You're not going anywhere." He stands up, turning his back to me while he
speaks to the colonel. He does it just to piss me off. I know that. It still
works.
"You take the men, I'll stay here and guard the prisoner," the colonel is
saying when I stop boring holes in the back of Logan's thick skull. Logan
makes no response and the colonel nods out two boys from the bunch, who step
out to come and stand on either side of me, aiming their rifles at my head.
"Aren't we the happy family?" I smile up at the soldiers as Logan moves off.
I catch his eye before he turns away and he knows something is up with the
colonel as well as I do. He's probably just happy to get rid of the dumb
prick so easily.
Logan's party is out of sight for all of three heartbeats before the colonel
is shoving his handgun into my left eye. "I think a shot in the brain will
even stop an animal like you."
"You could try." I shrug.
"Do I look familiar to you?" He dips in close. His breath stinks of violets.
"No that I recall. Your uniform's real pretty, though."
The colonel shoves the gun in harder so I have to press my head back into the
wall to keep from losing the eye. The boys on either side shift uneasily.
"The name's Waterman. Colonel John H. Waterman. My brother's name was Paul.
He was a lieutenant until you gutted him in his sleep."
"Oh yeah, I remember now," I lie. I don't know that kid from a hole in an
X-Man's liver. "Skinny, stupid, wet the bed."
"Animal!" Waterman yells and I see the gun butt go up and come down. I could
have stopped him but I'm still feeling a little groggy and the soldier boys
on either side aren't riled enough yet to get distracted. The metal butt
comes down hard on my temple and, by the time the stars have cleared, the
colonel has a hold of my hair so he can shove the gun in my eye at a better
angle. "Do you think you can just do whatever you please?" He spits.
"Murderer. You're worse than a rabid dog."
"Aw, you say the sweetest things." I grin and he hits me over the temple
again.
"I would say I'm putting you out of your misery but I'm going to enjoy this
too much." He shoves the gun back in my eye, but the soldier on my right
grabs his arm.
"Sir--" the moron begins but the rest was lost in a scream as he collapses to
the ground holding the arm I've just ripped to shreds. Knocking the other kid
out cold with the butt of his own rifle, I then spring up to face Waterman,
who's collapsed against the far wall while his gun skitters up the corridor.
"Lookee here." I smile. "The big bad colonel went and dropped his weapon.
Guess you just can't get the heroes these days." I shake my head, giving
Waterman the room to get to his feet.
"You don't scare me," he says, his gaze darting after his handgun.
"Well, that's because you're dumber than a rock," I reply just before he
proves me right by diving after the gun. I'm on him before he can blink,
riding him down to the floor, hearing his arm break beneath our combined
weight. "That's the way the cookie crumbles, soldier boy," I purr in his ear
before flipping him over to see his pain stained face.
"I'm not afraid of you." He gulps a breath and spits blood. The smell of his
fear is intoxicating. I feel the familiar tingle of blood lust moving up my
spine to my skull, then back down until its warmth spreads all over my body.
His heartbeat is deafening as I pull back my hand, ready to slice his throat
open and taste his terror-laced blood.
That's when Logan hits me from behind. One second I'm on the soldier, ready
to slice and dice, the next I'm under Logan in a reversal of fortune that
makes me laugh out loud.
"Give me a reason," Logan snarls, barely an inch away, his claws biting my
throat. But the moment has passed. The blood lust has built up and peaked
with Logan's attack even better than it would have if I'd killed Waterman. I
just grin up at him through the waves of pure pleasure coursing through my
blood.
Logan's face contorts as he realises what I'm doing. "You're one sick
bastard, Creed." He stands up with a disgusted growl and steps away to watch
the soldiers move the injured men carefully past me as I stand. It's only
then I realise what has happened while I've been surfing the blood lust.
Waterman is dead, shot in the chest by one of his own men. I laugh until
Logan punches me hard in the guts.
"What happened to Barney's brother?" I ask once I get my wheezing under
control.
"It got out." Logan watches the soldiers lifting up Waterman's body.
"Sloppy." I grin.
"You want another punch in the guts?"
I ignore the question and the look in his eye. "I suppose I'll be seeing you
around then, runt," I say through the taste of my own blood as the last of
the soldiers leave the corridor.
Logan just glares at me.
"Well, you can't look after me and those kiddies. That thing out there would
go through those greenhorns like a dose of the shits without you telling 'em
where to point the end that goes bang. And sticking me in with them is about
as bad."
"Maybe Waterman had the right idea, Vic." Logan bends down to pick up the
late, fuck-up of a colonel's handgun. "Maybe I should just put you down."
I smirk. If Logan really wanted me dead he'd use his claws and it would be
because he'd found those security guards and computer workers I'd gutted
earlier. "Waterman had it coming."
"And you've got this coming." He smiles then shoots me in the fucking thigh.
"You little..." I snarl, leaning against the wall, pressing down on the
artery he's nicked.
"That should slow you up enough."
"And make me stink of blood enough to give you a head start."
"You're not as dumb as you look, Vic. I'm evening the odds. Don't want you
missing out on any of the fun." Logan turns and jogs off down the corridor.
"Yeah, right," I growl back. I wait until I think Logan has left the building
before making my way back up to the computer room and sending a message to
Rae to fly the chopper in for me.
End
