Marvel-ous Ninjutsu

00037. The history of a tormented man.

"Actually before I start, what do you know about Laura's father? Yes I know she was cloned, but what do you know of the person the sample was taken from?"

Laura said nothing but looked at her mother for the answer. Sarah let out a sigh as she said, "I only know that they were a test subject for an older project called Weapon-x and that they went crazy at some point and killed most of the team behind the project. Only Stryker and Sutter survived the attack and that was because Stryker was able to kill the subject."

She glanced at Laura, then looked back at Ezekiel and said, "From my understanding they could only save some of the project data and a sample of genetic tissue from the subject before they left the base. During the subject's attack, the self-destruct protocol was activated, leaving them with only what they could carry out. That's all I know, you would have to ask Stryker and Sutter if you wanted more info and I doubt they would tell you anything."

Ezekiel nodded his head as he said, "That is very interesting information, now I can't wait to see what happens."

"What do you mean by that?"

Ezekiel smiled at Sarah and said, "That test subject isn't dead, he is very much alive and has a score to settle with Stryker for the bullets that were pulled out of his brain."

"How could he still be alive? He was shot in the head and then the base blew up. He shouldn't have been able to survive that. They have pictures from the aftermath of the explosion, that entire place was destroyed and nothing but a crater was left behind."

Ezekiel shrugged his shoulders and said, "I have no clue honestly and neither does he, but he is very much alive. His memories from before he was shot in the head are still missing. But it is something that we are currently trying to help him regain."

Ezekiel shook his head as he said, "Anyways, let's get back on track. The man you were cloned from, I wanted to tell you about him, about his life. So hopefully when you meet him you could understand him a little and possibly bond over your common circumstances."

Sarah pulled Laura a little closer as she asked, "I will not give up my daughter to some stranger."

"And I have no plans to separate you. But she should at least meet the person who she was created from. In the most basic sense, he is kind of like her father."

Sarah shook her head as she said, "But he went crazy and killed a bunch of people, she shouldn't meet someone like that."

Ezekiel gave her a deadpan look before he said, "Really? I get that you want a better life for her, but she is no longer an innocent and naive girl. That ship sailed the minute she was being groomed to kill people."

"But that doesn't mean she needs to be exposed to it anymore than she already has been."

Ezekiel shook his head and said, "How about you listen to what I have to say about this person, before you judge him as a bad influence for Laura."

Ezekiel waited for a moment before he took her silence as agreement to listen. He took a deep breath of air and then said, "The man's name is James 'Logan' Howlett and he was born around 1882 in Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada."

Sarah looked shocked and said, "He would be over a hundred and ten years old! I know he is a mutant, but he can't be that old. That would mean he killed over a hundred trained soldiers when he was eighty plus years old. Even with his ability to heal that doesn't seem possible at all."

Ezekiel laughed and then said, "You know he has a saying, 'I’m the best there is at what I do, but what I do best isn’t very nice'. It is frightfully accurate to describe him, he is the perfect weapon and little Laura here is the closest thing comparable to him. Yet even she still pales in comparison to the real thing."

“He had a pretty bad early life, frail and sick all the time. Considering the time period it was a miracle he survived at all. I am still not certain what totally happened, but the night he awakened his powers, his parents were killed. After his parents died he spent some time living in a mining camp before he spent about ten years after that living in the wilds of Canada with a pack of wolves. I am still not one hundred percent certain about all of that, but it should be about ninety percent accurate.” 

A picture appeared on the screen of Logan during World War One. Ezekiel smiled and said, "What we know for certain is this is one of the first pictures ever taken of Logan, and was just after The Battle of the Somme was finished. At some point he joined the Canadian military and served during World War One. After that he spent time traveling around the world in the Navy.”

Another photo came up and it was Logan with Captain America and Bucky. Ezekiel smiled and said, “Not really sure what happened but when World War Two broke out he joined the U.S. Military and somehow ended up in the Howling Commandos. He stayed in Europe for most of the fighting till he was transferred to the Pacific theater in 1944.”

A picture of Logan’s transfer orders showed up on the screen. Then another that said he was killed in combat with the enemy. “He was unlucky and left for dead when his company did a retreating action.” 

Some more reports showed up but they were all in Japanese. “The Japanese found him blown in half and pulling himself to what was left of his legs. They shot him a few times in the chest and then watched as he came back to life. So they captured him and took him to a special research base in Hiroshima. He stayed there until the bomb was dropped, yes that bomb."

Some new reports came up all in Japanese, “The place he was at was actually within a mile from ground zero of the explosion.”

Some more reports came up and even a picture of a man with no skin and bone like claws coming out of his hands. “He actually survived that even though he was within the main blast range of the bomb and that picture was taken by someone about a few hours after the bomb was dropped.”

Laura looked down at her own hands for a moment before she looked back at the screen and the picture of the skinless man. Ezekiel appeared back on the screen and said, “After the end of the war he stayed in Japan and trained under someone named . From there his history is kinda hard to track, from our understanding he met a woman and fell in love with her. But while she was pregnant with his child she was murdered and Logan apparently disappeared until the 1960’s. At least I could find no trace of him till he showed back up in the Weapon-x program.”

A new picture showed up with Logan and three other men. "I don't have too much info about the Weapon-x program, but I do know they did a lot of brainwashing, memory wipes and implantation on their members."

Some more reports and photos came up on the screen. One of them showed Logan in a tank with a mask over his face. "This was taken right before he went berserk and killed everyone at the Weapon-x facility."

Ezekiel looked at Laura for a moment before he looked at Sarah and said, "I am sure you are aware how Laura was given her claws?"

Sarah frowned as she said, "Yes, that bastard did it. He didn't even sedate her."

Laura frowned at the memories but said nothing as the picture of Logan changed to a video of him being lowered into a tank of liquid. The video also displayed his vitals along with a lot of other information that was being monitored for whatever test they were conducting. Stryker's voice could be heard on the video asking, "You sure this won't kill him?"

Someone else laughed before they said, "I didn't know you cared so much for your little pet."

Stryker was heard again and said, "I don't give a shit about that mutant freak, I just don't want to lose such a good weapon. Do you have any idea how long it takes to train someone to that level of skill?"

"I do not, nor do I care. As for if this will kill him. The man chuckled before he said, "It wouldn't be the first time we killed him in an experiment. He should come back to life like he always does."

"Fine, you can proceed with the experiment."

"Thank you, Colonel."

The liquid around Logan started to heat up slowly, all of the monitoring gauges were slowly increasing. After a while Logan began to thrash around as the liquid around him was starting to bubble up. His heart rate had started to spike on the monitor. Someone could be heard saying, "Everything is within parameters, start the injection process now."

All of the tubes connected to Logan became filled with a silver liquid and as the liquid reached his body he threshed even harder than before. Even though he had some type of mask over his face and was in a giant vat of liquid, his screams could still be heard on the video. After half a minute a man is heard over Logan's screaming as he says, "Alright cut the flow of adamantium, that should be enough for the bone bonding process."

Laura's eye's go wide and Sarah gasped slightly as she pulled Laura into a tighter hug. Laura slowly glanced down at her hands which were clenched tight. Sarah noticed her daughter's reaction and gently put her right hand on top of Laura's.

They both shared a glance before they watched in muted silence as the experiment finished and Logan's body was floating lifeless in the tank. The monitor showing his vitals was flat lined. Stryker could be heard asking, "Looks like you killed him again Dr. Sutter. Hopefully it wasn't for good this time."

"This was expected, he should recover in half an hour. Let's head to the morgue. I wanna show you something I found out about test subject fifty-two while we wait."

The video began to fast forward for a bit, when it started normally Logan's vitals were back, but his heart beat was out of control and he was thrashing around inside the tank. The video switched to a different camera with an overhead view of the area and tank Logan was in. After a moment Logan popped out of the tank screaming as his claws burst out of his hands and he cut the cables and wires attached to him.

Ezekiel's face popped back up and he said, "I have some more video but it's pretty much him killing everyone in a berserker rage."

"How did you even get that footage? It should have been destroyed with the base."

Ezekiel smiled and said, "Apparently it was being backed up to a different server off site by the government backers. Neither Stryker nor Sutter knew about it and after the base was destroyed, the program was canceled. I found everything about the program on some pentagon servers, after making a copy, I deleted every trace of it, along with a bunch of other information the government doesn't need. I even found all the backup and hard copies and had those removed and destroyed."

A newer picture of Logan appeared on the computer, he was standing next to a few people and a large group of kids was with them. Ezekiel smiled and as he started talking, new pictures of Logan with kids and different people were appearing on the screen. “After Logan’s rampage, he lost all of his memories and was found by Charles Xavier. He has since been living and working at the Xavier Institute for the Gifted, while Charles was trying to help him recover his memories. They weren’t having much luck since Logan still had the bullets resting inside his head. But since I helped remove the bullets, he has been making progress and is slowly regaining his memories.”

The pictures finally stopped and Ezekiel fully appeared on the screen again. He glanced at Sarah, before he looked at Laura as he asked, “So what do you think about the man who is kind of your father?”

Laura looked up at her mother for a few moments and they made eye contact but said nothing. After a while she looked at Ezekiel and said, “I would like to meet him, but I want to stay with my mother.”

“He will be thrilled to hear that… Well thrilled for him will probably be a grunt in acknowledgement, but trust me he will be happy. I know it sounds weird, but as you saw he has been through a lot, but deep down inside he is just a big gruff teddy bear.”

Ezekiel looked back at Sarah and asked, “So when would you and your daughter like to leave?”

Sarah looked a little shocked but asked, “How soon could you help us escape and where would we be going? We will also need help hiding from the people running this place and what about my family? If I leave they might target my sister and niece.”

Ezekiel laughed as he said, “I wouldn’t worry about any of that, the people behind this place will think you are dead once we are done. As for when I help you escape, how about right now?”

A portal opened up in front of Sarah and Laura, they could still see Ezekiel on the screen as he said, “Alright, just step through that and you will be one step closer to freedom.”

They couldn’t see what was on the other side of the portal, but Sarah looked down at Laura and said, “Come on let's go see where this takes us, anywhere is better than here.”

Laura nodded in agreement as she stood up with her mother and then held hands as they walked through the portal together.