Bab 1: The Way it Has to Be
Things don't ever seem to go the way I plan.
Sometimes, that's a good thing.
Most times, it's deadly.
It's why people can't get too close to me.
Eventually, they get cut down.
So, I do my job. I'm good at it. The best. I keep busy, get enough drinks in me to stay the terrors for another night. It's a steady rhythm, a dependable one.
Dependable's good. Dependable's what I need. But the thing about working with a tight-knit group of mutants in a mansion is people tend to wanna get… chummy.
Being able to smell for miles means not much gets past me. It's late, and while I'd made it my business to stay in the kitchen away from prying eyes and yapping mouths, it seemed I was clocked. A single scent deviated from the collective swarm wafting in the air, drawing nearer and nearer. Quiet as they were approaching the entrance, it wasn't quiet enough. I don't need to look.
"Rogue."
"Uh, h-hey, Log—Wolverine."
I throw back the rest of my beer, setting the bottle down next to the four other empty ones on the counter. "Need somethin'?"
"No, I… Well, the Brotherhood was taken down, and I was wondering if you were gonna… come and celebrate with the rest of us."
"I am celebrating."
"Yeah, alone…"
"Just how I like it." I figure the girl deserves the decency of bein' looked in the eye, and so I turn around. She's this place's newest resident. Of everyone here, she seemed the most… persistent to try and get a peek behind the mask. Thing is, that's not gonna work for me. For anyone. And so, I do one of the other things I do best. "Look, kid, I get it, I saved your life. And maybe that makes you feel like you owe me, but trust me. You don't. So how about we quit while we're ahead, huh? Leave it at that."
The girl's breath trembles. Good. Maybe it's sinkin' in.
Kid's lookin' for someone to latch onto. I can't be it.
I force myself to watch her hurry out the kitchen, listen to her fading footsteps. The fidgeting begins. I stop jingling the keys in my pocket and turn back around, eyein' the five empty beer bottles mocking me on the counter. Nothin' yet. Not even a buzz. I toss 'em into recycling and make my way out the kitchen. The chattering hasn't stopped in the mansion—in fact, it seems to have gotten louder. I need some air, some quiet.
Anything further back than 15 years is lost to me. Some days it eats at me. Other days, I thank the stars that I don't know.
Somethin'… ugly happened to me.
That ugly can't come out at the wrong people.
The cool evening air wraps around me like the arms of an old friend. The outdoors are home to me. Things always made a little more sense out here. Nature doesn't act with malice. Nature doesn't swindle, or lie, or corrupt. It just is. I can admire that. Being's the hardest thing to do. But hell if I don't try from time to time.
The air is fresh, untainted by the smog of the city. Less light pollution meant more visible stars, and they weren't shy tonight. I let myself get lost in them.
Without warning, a jolt passes through me, electric, heavy. Familiar. I don't see stars now. Instead, it's snow, and it's comin' down heavy. I know it isn't cold—my mind says so, but I still find myself shivering. I raise my arm to the sky and it's bare, save for blood and wires. I blink and the scene's gone. The stars return, and a breath escapes me, shakier than I would've liked.
That was the third vision in the last two weeks.
"Logan," I hear behind me. My arm comes down.
If one assumed a goddess was calling my name, I couldn't blame 'em. I glance back. Long, platinum locks flowed with the breeze, carrying with it the faint scent of tropical rain and flora. Her ebony skin, ever perfect, always glowing, is brought out by her all-white attire. The clicking of heels draw nearer with the woman's elegant stride, and her eyes are trained on me, steady, cool. I feel a lecture coming.
"You know, you could try and be a little more festive. We did a good thing today."
"Festive's not really my thing, Storm," I say, straightening my flannel. "I'm just waitin' on the next job."
"And that's all this is to you? A job?"
"That's the long and short of it, yeah."
The woman's eyes flicker with something of disappointment. It's not anything new. "I see. Is that why Rogue is in such a sour mood after speaking with you?"
"So that's what this is about."
"Yes. That's what this is about."
I don't like feeling cornered. I don't like my back against the wall, and I don't like to be questioned. 'Specially on things I'm privy to. "It ain't personal. You've seen me work. You know what I do."
"I do know. And I know that kind of burden can be hard to bear alone."
I chuckle. "Maybe. Or maybe it's easy and that's exactly why I'm here."
"So you say."
"Yeah. I say so." I dunno all that much about myself these days. But I do know one thing. "I'm not what you are. Not a role model, not a pal. I do the dirty work, and the Professor helps me with my memories. That's it. So you can tell the kid, and everyone else for that matter, that they're barkin' up the wrong tree." I don't wait for a retort and head in the opposite direction. It's hard to ignore the static tickling at the back of my neck. But unlike me, Storm has restraint. She lets me go, and I'm grateful for it.
The further I walk, the easier it gets. The distant conversations continuing in the mansion, through the campus, are overtaken by cricket song and rustling leaves. I pat the front of my flannel, try my back pockets. Empty. I'm craving the taste of a hefty cigar, and I'd forgotten the last one had already been smoked early this morning. Nights like this, when the visions take hold, the flavored smoke keeps me tethered. Somethin' to focus on, a mission to complete, a beer to drink… It's all kept me going so far.
I'm not hard to please, but I sure as hell am easy to piss off. Especially when I'm aimless.
I bleed, but I don't break. I get knocked down, but I always get back up. The fight comes all too natural t'me. The rage that follows is out of my control. I need to know why. Maybe I've gotten about as many answers as I'll ever get. Maybe I'm fated to live in obscurity. I've got time to find out. Or maybe I don't. Maybe I'll finally lose my mind and someone'll have to take me down. I pity the poor soul stuck with the task.
Sure, the day was won, but after a couple of years, you start to notice a pattern. If it ain't one psycho, it's another. If it ain't one poison, it's another with a different name. The near-eight months I've ran with the X-Men, I've seen them fight for humans and mutants alike. What they stand for makes folks on both sides… antsy. So antsy, in fact, that neither side is above usin' or even killin' kids to gain ground. It's what happened to Rogue. It's what would've happened to too many others that live here. So I can't exactly say I'm more fond of one group than the other.
This place lets me make the most difference with what I do best. It gives me that aim. Somethin' that makes use of these claws. I look back. The campus is small with distance, lights on in nearly every window. I recall the first time I was here.
It was to kill the Professor.
He didn't have to let me live. Coulda sicced his team on me. But he didn't and that makes him a much greater man than me.
These people… are not what I am.
And y'know, I can live with that. I've lived with it so far. Everyone here is plenty dangerous, but there's a line they don't cross. I cross it, and I cross it often. I'm not sorry for it. It's too late for that.
When the claws tear through my skin, the pain is easy to stand. In fact, it's needed. Keeps me from drifting. Keeps me present. It makes the things I do that much more real.
See, I don't shoot percussive beams from my eyes. I don't control the weather, and I can't move things with my mind. When I go for my target, it's intimate. It's personal. And everyone who sees what I do knows that. No one should get used to it. No one 'cept an animal like me.
I killed for Rogue. She watched me do it, and the memory makes a chew toy outta me. The girl was at gunpoint, and there were no more options. I took the trigger-happy soldiers down in front of her, and that was her initiation into this world. I don't need her thinkin' this is normal. That what I am is good.
The other kids try and approach me just the same. A boy with ice powers, a girl who can make herself intangible. I dunno what they believe I could do for them. I dunno why they keep trying.
I climb the tree just up ahead and take perch on its strongest branch. I'm itchin' for another fight. I'm itchin' to take off.
I examine my hands, run a thumb over my knuckles, wondering just where I would go. I could hoof it for a while, drift from town to town. It's easy enough.
But then what?
My middle claw erupts from my hand, and I examine its subtle glint in the low light. I'm no stranger to pain. Some days, it's been my only company. And so, I lean into it. I force myself to. It's all too easy to pop the claws in the heat of battle. It's harder to stare at the handiwork of your maker in the quiet.
You're in a dour state tonight, I hear. But I don't hear it with my ears.
"I thought you'd be stayin' outta my head 'til another one of our sessions, Chuck."
No mind-reading required. News of your brooding has spread through word of mouth.
"Brooding," I repeat with a laugh. "First the kid, then Storm, now you. What is it with you people? Can'tcha take a hint?"
You can't keep doing this, you know. Shutting people out.
"Yeah? You my therapist now?"
Merely food for thought.
"Well, thanks, but I figured you of all people'd understand. You've been inside my mind. It ain't pretty."
That, it is not.
He pauses.
Your body may heal, but your psyche is… fragmented. And that's exactly why I believe you need to try a different way.
I scoff. "And what way is that?"
Being there for others more vulnerable than you. Working to earn your redemption, not push it away.
The branch sways as I shift, and a gust of wind takes with it a few leaves.
Redemption.
"Who says I'm lookin' for redemption?"
I don't get a response. Just like him, too. Even when I get the last word, I don't.
I'm thinking.
I hate that I'm thinking.
My gaze wanders back to the campus, and I picture what it might be like to be something else.
I sheathe my claw, and the torn skin seals up quickly.
It's hard to grasp. Hard to believe.
And so I don't.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone