[Center][IMG]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/180623/45cbbb76a88d211056db7a2805e193d3.png [/IMG][/Center] [B]The Weapon X Facility The Final Frontier: Canada[/B] "Alright, my boy. I've got the Cobain doctrine right here, legally, in case you've forgotten, you are no longer a person, not that you have been for a long time from what I hear, but if there's anything you need to get off your chest, now is the time." Doctor Cornelius held his gaze for a long moment, even tilting his ear in his patient's direction and grinning with a heartfelt smile. "It's okay to be nervous, you know. It's not everyday that you cease to be." At that Cornelius also silently commented that [I]It's not everyday you get to impress the world's most dangerous immortal paper shredder into your service[/I]. Carol Hines, a soft-looking young lady, clenched Logan's forearm like a golden ticket, holding him intimately. Cornelius couldn't quite tell if she was attempting to soothe him or seduce him, not that anything she was doing would matter momentarily, anyhow. Almost addicted to the anticipation, he leapt up as though he'd heard a starter pistol, hopping away from his desk, two-way radio, notes and miscellaneous possessions before he put on his coat and gathered his bearings. "Well then Mr. Logan, come right this way" Cornelius sang before waltzing over to a large metal door, which shimmered like seltzer despite certainly being as solid as the sun's core. He then swipes his key card and leads Carol and Logan into the innards of Weapon X. They were facing a long, long hallway with periodic incandescent bulbs being the only clear marker of distance. They piled into a vehicle, some small little thing reminiscent of a golf cart, and cruised down the blank corridor, their only company being each other and the gigantic bellowing silence. "So Mr. Logan," Carol began, "what made you decide you didn't want to be a person anymore?" Logan snorted, and with the ferocity of a screeching weasel he spat "Society makes me wanna puke" before waving his hand like a magician summoning a rose. Carol was intrigued while waiting for the prestige, but there were no flowers that slithered out from under the wild man's sleeves. Rather, it was a bouquet of blood splatter that sprung out of his thigh. "Listen kiddo, y'know how it feels when you're little sister kicks over your Lego © Death Star that you've spent weeks working to get just right? Only to have some young hotshot nobody blast it all to oblivion? My death star is gone. Family? Friends? Heroes? All dead. It's time I get on my way. But I figured, y'know, somebody's gonna use my body for some twisted plan. At least this way I get to know what it is." Carol stares at him. Not like she's engrossed in his brilliance or anything, though. She stares at him the way that the foam at the bottom of an empty mug stares back up at the person who'd emptied it, like he'd just sucked every last drop of the stale atmosphere out of the entire compound. It stayed quiet for a while too. Time passed and so did about forty-five incandescent bulbs and about a dozen doors that looked like they should've been their stop. But finally, Cornelius brought their little hall buggy to a halt. "Alright, boys and girls, we've arrived." At that they stepped over to a man-sized door, where Cornelius swiped his card again and played his role of [I]tour-guide who gave a fuck what this patient was about to go through[/I]. "Mr. Logan, you've been swimming before, haven't you?" Cornelius asked, though the question didn't quite elicit the response that he'd been hoping for. Instead of forging a half-hearted "who hasn't?" or a "of course, I have, you dingus!" Logan just stopped--he entirely froze every muscle in his body like a wax figure before slowly melting back into motion. He timidly stepped forward, which made Carol shiver because she hadn't really taken Mr. Logan as the type to do anything timidly. She really thought him to be something of an [I]animal[/I]. "Alright, Mr. Logan. Right this way, if you'll just step into this little spot right here," he waved to a disc in the floor resembling a space-agey man-hole, decked out with a yellow neon ring, "we can begin the process." Logan marched over, not with a sense of duty, but with defeat. He opened his mouth to speak before inhaling and pulling the reins of his vocal cords. He didn't want to say anything stupid. This was the end of his time as a person. In all his time on this earth, he'd killed a hell of a lot of people. All of the ones he remembered terminating had something profound to pass on before they-- kissed off into that grand old goodnight. Logan's claws popped in sync with his eyelids as he felt the ground give way beneath him, parting ways like Mike & Ike, compromising Logan's footing and giving him over to the cold embrace of the swampy fluid below. Logan screamed as he sank into the pool. It was like being drank by a barrel of Mountain Dew, if Mountain Dew smelled like gasoline. "Goodbye Mr. Logan," Carol said, blowing him a kiss. "Heavens," Cornelius scoffed, "What have you done with that boy?" "That's none of your concern, Mr. Cornelius." "Ah, you see, Ms. Hines, it is my concern because that vicious little bundle of psychotic laughter is not a person with rights, but a thing--a thing which The Weapon X Initiative of North America is heavily invested in. Not that I suspect you've tampered with anything, but if his performance is not up to par, I do suspect that you may be suspect for negligence, sabotage or just general stupidity," Carol raised a finger and widened her lips, before nixing both plans of communicating. A team of surgeons march in, dutifully dressed in scrubs with those characteristic masks covering their lips, cheeks and chin. Several tables chocked full of golden surgical tools were wheeled in with them. Each operator looked at the others, their supplies, a print-out of their objectives & requirements before flashing grins that Cornelius was confident could somehow still be seen even if they were wearing cinder-blocks for masks. "Alright, we've got less than twelve hours before his metabolism cleans all of the gold out of this solution. You cannot under any circumstances let his body emerge from this blend and we cannot--repeat: [u]cannot[/u] fuck this up in any way, lads. If anyone has any questions, go ahead and place yourself in the morgue because it will be worse than death should we, at any time, become aware that you let your dog eat your goddamned homework." Cornelius gave a good-natured laugh, or at least the best that his nature would permit, before grinning. "Let's get to it." [hr] [B]The Howlett Estate The Fall of 1853[/B] James had been sleeping until glass shattered with the kind of jarring vibrance that hopes and dreams do. He groggily cast his comforters aside, hearing a struggle in the foyer at the bottom of the staircase, so he went to go investigate. Cautiously now, he peeked through his doorway, seeing nothing but spears of moonlight piercing his boyish sanctuary. He hears the struggle continue with the kind of mortal urgency that makes a man sacrifice that which he holds dearest, so little James casts his worries to the same corner of his room that his comforters had been exiled to. He tugs on his door's crack and rips it open, hearing it wheeze and halfway expecting some kind of acknowledgement that he'd penetrated the forbidden aether. None came. Just more struggling and cursing, angry obscenities--the sort that a busy father can pass out like trading cards. James crawls through the darkness before peeking over his staircases' rail and seeing two of his favorite people in the world beating the snot out of each other. "You thought that I didn't know? You think I'm completely oblivious?" John Howlett howled before crashing his fist against his former housekeeper's jaw. John doesn't stop there though, he strikes again and again and again and again. "You think you can just have at my wife? I'll have at your worthless little thieving life. But you don't get to see the kid. He's mine. Everything in this house is mine. Every mouse, plate, person and piece of shit like yourself." Howlett hits again. "Sure are a glutton for punishment, aren't you Logan?" It's not that he didn't appreciate the world-shattering impact of watching these two pillars of his upbringing fight it out like this, but young James was trying to remember what the word glutton meant. [I]Didn't that mean Wolverine[/I]? "Yep, you got me. Can't help it much. Never could." Mister Thomas Logan chuckles before spitting his own blood into Howlett's eyes, blinding the patriarch for a moment. "But my gluttonous ass is lucky to be fighting a sissy boy like you who has to write a damned dissertation between every pitch." Logan digs in, kneeing the man, smashing the sides of his head back and forth like a solo tennis match. "Say whatever you want, John, but the wife prefers me. I'm a simple man, but effective. I'm the best there is at what I do, but what I do isn't very nice." John Howlett goes down with a crack. In engineering terms, you could say that his nose suffered a catastrophic failure. That was the first time that little James Howlett died inside. The boy rushes down the stairs and pounces on his bleeding father, whose purple face manages to convey pure contempt. John Howlett spits in James' face and the last word that he ever growls is "Logan." At that, James turns around and furiously dives into Mr. Logan's outstretched arms, planting his fist harmlessly in the housekeeper's belly, again and again like his father had done. Logan tries to tell the kid to take it easy, but then one of the punches sticks and Mr. Logan just slumps to the ground before he can get a word out.