"this is where it all begins,
my only rival is within."
- Rival, Ruelle

╳

I never had an exact idea of what I wanted in life, or where I saw myself going. What I did know, was that I wanted to follow in the footsteps of my parents, in some way.

My father was a decorated soldier and my mother, a registered nurse.

So training to be a Combat Medic Specialist in the Army, seemed like a perfect direction to take.

My mother wasn't entirely fond of the idea, seeing as my father was killed in action. But her and my brother, James, supported me all the way.

My brother, the surgeon. I was so proud of him. And I was determined to finally make him proud in return.

So after my 28th birthday, I enlisted. I did my weeks and weeks of intensive training, learning all the skills necessary to be effective on the battlefield.

My first tour in Afghanistan had been successful and I was looking forward to going back home.

However, before my unit made it home, we were tapped. A man flew in, leading a small team of his own, searching for the right recruits to join his 'classified' fight. He'd heard good things about our unit and wanted us to join him. So we did.

We didn't ask too many questions, all too ready and willing to make the world a better place for our loved ones back home. So my friends and I joined William Stryker and his classified project.

Classified, however, was a very misleading word.

We'd assumed the reason no other higher ups knew of Stryker's project, was because it was, as he said, classified. We didn't know it was because it was shady and off the books.

Starting as a military officer, Stryker had worked his way up the ranks, and then found his way through every little loophole he could, to bring his personal project to life.

My unit and I were moved to a secret site and injected with what we were told were vitamins, antibiotics and steroids that would protect us in the war zones.

But it was more than that.

The serum they gave us altered our DNA.

Our hearing and our sense of smell were heightened. As too was our ability to heal. An injury that would normally take a week to heal, took a day.

We became science experiments instead of soldiers. They monitored our progress and put us into combat training.

But members of my unit began to dwindle away. One by one.

A lot of them got sick, their bodies rejecting the serums. Most of the ones who were sick, died. And the ones that didn't die, became bed ridden, and Stryker had them euthanised.

We were devastated at the loss of our friends. Some of the few who remained, tried to flee, but they were shot and killed. After that, the rest of us kept our heads down and did what was required, in the naive hope we'd eventually make it back to our families one day.

Stryker threw us into more training, putting us to hand to hand combat, sparring and fighting against one another. I was the only female left in our group, and while the men were all stronger than me, I was fast and more flexible.

We were good. But not good enough.

So the next doses of serum targeted our emotional states, with synthetic adrenaline to help induce rage.

Stryker wanted to make us primal.

The men excelled. Their fights became brutal and some of them would need a heavy sedative to calm down aftewards.

I, on the other hand, remained much the same. While the men could self-induce their rage for a fight, my rage laid dormant until I was triggered. However, once it emerged, it was just as powerful.

But Stryker saw my 'lack of control' as a disadvantage. Unreliable. So he focused on the others while I became a punching bag for their fights.

Then one day, one of my friends was consumed by his aggression. He couldn't be controlled or contained, and he turned on Stryker. He was destroying the place and killing Stryker's people. The others tried to fight him, but in the end, I was the one to put him down. An urge to protect the defenceless triggering my rage. Even if the defenceless deserved it..

This put me back on Stryker's radar. He decided he wanted to channel my 'potential.'

While our injury recovery was now faster than the average human, we were all spent. These weeks had been far tougher to endure than our official Afghanistan tour, and the three of us who remained, just wanted to go home to our families.

Stryker approved our leave and put us on his plane. But it was all another lie.

Before we landed, he sedated us and restrained us, and we all woke up in a room with no windows and a locked door.

"Your progress is better than any outcome we could have projected. I cannot let you go. Not when there is still work to be done." he told us.

The next stage of his experimentations saw him implanting more bones into our bodies. Sharp and pointed, three 8 inch bones were inserted in the men's forearms. Alternatively, they inserted two in each of my forearms, and one in each foot.

It was all a taxing process and one of the guys didn't make it.

Somehow, far beyond my comprehension, the new bones were retractable, and we leant to use them. Like an amputee learning to use a new limb.

The long sharp bones would shoot out, painfully, through my knuckles like elongated claws. And the ones in my feet shot out from between my first two toes.

After that, Stryker worked on enhancing our healing abilities even more, until we had rapid regeneration, able to heal in seconds. My one remaining friend's healing was not as rapid as mine, but still very fast.

Then one day, Stryker came into our room and informed us that we were moving facilities. For the next stage. The experimentation was never ending.

We were put into restraining collars, with our hands cuffed at our necks, my restraints extending to my ankles. We moved to a new facility, on the outskirts of New York. Here, we were placed in seperate cells.

I only ever left my cell to be poked, prodded, shot, burned, sliced, diced and all round tortured, while Stryker tested my regeneration for any limits. And for combat training.

Eventually, locked in a cage with no telling if it was day or night, I lost myself in the routine. I spoke less and less each day, and went through the motions of training. I fell into autopilot, until I started to feel more animal than human. And whenever I'd falter in following his commands, Stryker would send me off for more torture sessions.

Then we reached what Stryker claimed to be the last stage of experiments.

Adamantium, he called it.

A silver metal he kept hot and liquified, for if it was to solidify, it would become indestructible. He intended to coat our skeletons with it.

He strapped the pair of us onto metal trays overtop of two glass tanks of water. He fitted us with oxygen masks and sent us under.

Little silver looking guns with long sharp needles were lined up at all of my joints. A container filled with the liquid adamantium sat between the two tanks, and when Stryker hit the button on his machine, all of the needles stabbed deep into our skin and drilled to our bones.

Anaesthesia unable to work given our regeneration, we were both wide awake for the whole procedure.

The feeling of the warm metal coursing into my body was far worse than all the months of torture I'd endured, combined. My heart rose to an impossibly fast rate, until I blacked out to the sound of my own flatline.

I hoped death would carry me away, but no such luck. I awoke.

My body felt extremely violated, and heavier than I remembered. Still underwater, the muffled voices of Stryker and one of his doctors slowly became more and more clear as I came to.

From what I could gather, the last remaining member of my unit in the tank beside me, didn't survive his procedure.

"I don't think you've thought everything through, William.." Evan, one of the doctors, fretted.

"Thought everything through? I've just created the perfect soldier." Stryker boasted.

"It doesn't alter her unwillingness to obey your orders. You really think she'll comply? You can't stop her now, if she doesn't."

"That's why we're going to erase her memory." Stryker concluded. "Clean slate. She won't know anything other than mindless cooperation."

My eyes shot open at his words.

"And in the meantime? You're not about to erase her mind right this second."

He wasn't about to erase my memory, period.

I looked around my glass tank, while I tried to wriggle free of my restraints.

"..Bring her family in." he said. "Put a gun to their heads. That should do the trick."

My body shook with anger and my shiny new claws shot out through my skin, an extension of my anger, ready to attack.

"I think she heard you.." said Evan.

I broke free of all restraints and rose from the water in a fit of rage. Leaping from the little tank, I ran, cutting down anyone in my path without a second thought.

Then I kept running. Until I reached my mother's home, in Clifton.

I burst into her home, thankful to see my brother was there, too. My mother screamed and the both of them stared at me in shock.

I guess I looked a sight. Barefoot, hair wild, in a small dirty sports bra and boy-leg briefs.

"Jenavieve.." my mother gasped.

They both stared at me like they'd seen a ghost. Then my mother rushed over and latched onto me for dear life.

Tears filled my eyes and quickly spilled over, running down my face. I felt like the weight of the world had lifted from me, like everything I'd gone through had all been a big nightmare.

My brother joined our embrace, squeezing us tight.

The sound of their heartbeats was music to my ears, and I almost became dizzy from the strength of their scents filling my nose.

"Oh, my darling girl." my mother cried. "They told us you were killed in action.. About a year ago."

"What the hell happened to you, Jenny?" James asked.

I was out of breath, overwhelmed and overstimulated.

"Uh.. Walk and talk." I mumbled. Aside from my screams and grunts, I hadn't heard my own voice for weeks.

"What?" my mother questioned.

"I'll tell you everything, but we have to move. I need to get you somewhere safe."

My mother forced me into the bathroom for a quick shower and a change into proper clothes. Luckily my brother and I always left spare clothes at Mom's.

I gave them a summarised version of events as they each packed a bag.

"He turned me into a weapon.. a killer.. He altered my DNA and made me a monster." I concluded. "We have to go, before he finds us."

Before we left, my mother stopped into the kitchen, to grab her stash of emergency cash from behind the fridge. She stood in front of me with a smile, giving the money in her hand a little shake. My brother and I always used to tease her about never needing a hidden stash, and now there we were, needing it.

"Okay, let's go." she said, before a bullet ripped straight through her chest and into mine. Her body fell into my arms as we fell to the ground.

Before I could react, another bullet ripped through the kitchen window and into my brother.

My mother was gone instantly, but my brother was still alive. I pulled myself out from under her body and crawled to his side, the bullet dropping from my chest along the way.

"James!" I shrieked, tears streaming down my face. "James, you're gonna be okay. Please, be okay."

He stared up at me, gripping tightly onto my hand. "You have to go.." he spluttered.

I shook my head profusely. "I won't leave you."

"You have to. They'll come for you." His teeth coated red as blood filled his mouth.

"James.."

"Go."

"I'm so sorry. This is all my fault, I'm so sorry." I sobbed.

He pulled me close and looked me in the eyes.

"Don't be what they made you." he whispered.

And then his eyes closed, his grip on my hand weakened and his heart ceased to beat.

I sat on the kitchen floor, looking between the bodies of my mother and brother, before I bellowed a cry of agony and weeped for my family.

It wasn't until I started hearing noises from outside that I finally made my move.

I phoned an ambulance to my mother's address, so their bodies would be found, snatched my mother's cash, and left.

I'd been on the run for three weeks, keeping my head down as I kept moving, only speaking to other people when I absolutely had to.

Right up until yesterday, when music swelled from a local bar in Michigan, piquing my interest as I wandered down the road of the small town.

And today, as night falls, I find myself back at Lola's Roadhouse.

I hadn't noticed anyone on my tail for six days, I had time.
For him, I would make time. Create it. Invent it.

I down a couple drinks while the band starts up and soon the atmosphere around me shifts.

As butterflies flutter in my stomach, I hold my breath and glance across the bar, locking eyes with the sweetest thing I've encountered in well over a year.

Frank.

A/N

So, Jenavieve is essentially a female Wolverine/ an adult version of Laura(x23.) Abilities wise.
But the origin of her mutation is inspired by the character Vincent Keller, from the tv show Beauty and the Beast (2012).

Last chapter was a bit short, so I'm uploading this one early. I promise it gets more interesting here on out.
I know it's a random take on a character and storyline for a Frank fic, but in my head it makes so much sense and I love it. 😅

Next chapter will be uploaded Friday.

- K