In many ways, he is the perfect specimen of what mankind has to offer. He could be a scholar, a politician, a scientist, a doctor, or a world-renowned athlete; instead he is here. He is standing among a group of sweating, drunk men, all of whom are yelling obscenities to the man in the center of the room. This man is the reason for his coming to this desolate spot in the Canadian wilderness. The man, no older then he was, is standing shirtless within a large chicken wire cage taking a sip of a local beer. Unbeknownst to the caged Canadian, the man who knows every fighting style in the world has deemed himself the Canadian’s newest student.

An overweight man steps into the cage with the shirtless man, “Now for tonight’s main attraction. Who among you are what it takes to step toe to toe with the Wolverine?” He is speaking through a microphone, even with the amplification of his voice; it is difficult to make out what he is saying over the yelling of the mob.

Wolverine is standing there, not seeming to care one way or the other if anyone takes the fat man up on his offer. The announcer continues to work the crowd, “Is there no real men here tonight? Are only among women and children tonight?”

For a moment, the man in the audience contemplates raising his untouched bottle of beer and announcing he will accept the challenge; after all, that is why he is here. However, a large man in the front row beets him to it. The juggernaut of a man steps up to the cage, he pulls his flannel shirt off of his massive form. His bulging muscles would inform an informed eye of obvious life full of manual labor, most likely a logger.

The announcer is explaining something to the logger; Wolverine stands in his corner obviously unconcerned about his new opponent. The announcer quickly exits the cage, leaving Logger standing there sizing up the smaller man in the corner. A bell rings, and the large man stands waiting for Wolverine’s first move. Wolverine walks slowly over to the large man, and without warning lunges for the logger. The logger deflects Wolverine easily causing Wolverine to stumble to one knee. He calmly looks up to see what the logger had in plan.

The logger, putting all his strength and considerable weight into a massive punch, smashes a meaty fist into Wolverine’s unworried face. Even among all the noise in the stands, the student can hear the tell-tell sound of bone against bone. Rolling with the punch, Wolverine quickly stands up. The student can see that the flesh around Wolverine’s eye is already swelling due to the massive blow. He can also see the look of surprise on the logger’s face, he was not expecting Wolverine to stand back up.

Wolverine cants his head at a forty-five degree angle, then lunges himself at logger. Almost faster then the eye can see, Wolverine is slamming his fists into the larger man’s head again and again. It does not take long for the logger to fall face first onto the floor. He makes no effort to get up, obviously unconscious.

The crowd is obviously upset with this out come. Beer bottles sail across the room to slam into the chicken-wire surrounding the fighters. The announcer quickly comes into the cage followed by the logger’s two buddies. With effort, they drag his massive form out of the arena.

“The winner by knockout, The Wolverine!” The announcer pauses until the crowd’s decibel levels are back to what is considered “normal.” “Does anyone else hear have what it take to challenge this man?”

The student looks to Wolverine, expecting to see his eye too swollen to continue another fight. To his surprise, there is no evidence of swelling. Wolverine is again in his corner calmly drinking his beer. This explains a thing or two. He had heard that Wolverine was seen to take beatings that would kill a man, and yet stand back up and not only continue fighting, but overpower and defeat his attacker. He had chalked it up to barroom legends, but now he sees that Wolverine posses meta-human capabilities. This did not matter, he would still willing step into the cage to pit his fighting skills against the greatest street fighter known to exist.

The announcer, still heckling the crowd is now joined in the cage by a couple of men with a broom and mop. They quickly start working on cleaning up the teeth and blood the logger had left behind him.

Now is the time, the student puts his drink down and confidently stands up. “I will challenge him!” he bellows.

“Ah, we do have a real man here, after all. Come down, my friend.” The announcer seems to be very excited that anyone would be willing to come in after the violence that was just witnessed just a few moments.

The student takes off his beat up leather jacket, and walks into the cage. The announcer explains some basic rules and quickly exited the cage. The bell rang and Wolverine turned around to face his new opponent. All evidence of a previous fight where erased from his features. He looked as though he too had just stepped into the ring.

Neither combatant attacked, both waiting for the other. Wolverine again made the first move, he lunged with a ferocity that would have led an observer to believe he was indeed the wild animal of his namesake. The student easily stepped to the right, causing Wolverine to miss his target entirely. As Wolverine flew past him, the student easily planted a round kick into his kidneys. Momentum stopped, Wolverine falls to the ground. Any other man would be wallowing in pain. Instead, he stands and gives a quizzical look to his opponent. The student feints a punch to Wolverine’s head and drops to the floor and places another massive kick to the Wolverine’s lower back.

This would have sent his kidneys into shock. Massive pain should be rippling through his body. Instead, the Wolverine slowly gets back up. The only evidence of pain is a slight wince. Impossible, the student thinks. His meta-human abilities not only repair damaged tissue, but dull any pain obtained due to injury. Amazing.

Enraged, Wolverine launches into a blinding series of punches. The student easily blocks each of the blows, backing up with each step. Blocking the blows is less like blocking punches, but felt more like blocking swings from a bat or metal pipe. Another meta-human power? Another test, the student ducks under the latest blow and slams his fit under the Wolverine’s jaw. The Wolverine knocked back a step or two, but the student follows up with a punch into his ribcage. Wolverine is sent back a few more steps, the student his processing new information with computer like speed. The blow to the ribcage was very informative. The ribs did not give at all like a normal man’s would, instead it was like punching a metal wall.

Metal? Possibilities quickly ran through his head. A robot? Not likely, though that would explain the possible regeneration of tissue. But he was sure that this was a man. A metal skeleton? Possibaly.

Wolverine recovered from the blows is back and fighting with vigor. The student parries and attacks when he can. The whole time he is thinking of a way to stop a man who can regenerate almost as fast as he is injured and who has bones that cannot break. Not break? That is it!

The student lures Wolverine nearer the cages walls. Believing that he had his prey cornered, Wolverine jumps in the air to slam his fits into his student’s body. However, at the last moment, the student soars into the air with a mighty leap. Wolverine’s fists, not finding the expected flesh, slam instead into the chicken-wire cage wall. His hands easily punch through the metal. Before he can get his hands untangled from the mesh wire, the student is on him. Simultaneously the student sends both hands slamming into Wolverine’s ears. The shock to his equilibrium is too much even for his meta-human powers and he slumps to the ground. Out cold.

The volume of the crowd is deafening, not with cheers but even more animosity then they had when their own friends where being dragged from the cage. The announcer quickly comes in and is announcing his as the winner. No one hears it, they are angered that a newcomer has come in and stopped what they had deemed unstoppable. Understandable, but the student doubted that they would be so supportive (in their own way) of the Wolverine if they knew what he was.

His goal obtained, he picks he jacket up and exits the bar. In the parking lot, he walks to a beat-up pick up with a small man in the driver’s seat.

“I take it you challenged this hedgehog person,” he says in a sly British tone.

“Wolverine. And it was not quite what I was expecting. He was not only the greatest street fighter I have seen but he was also a meta-human.” He explains as he gets in through the passenger door.

“Really? How do you think he got these powers? Maybe exposed to some sort of radiation or maybe bitten by some sort of infected animal?” The smaller man starts the car.

“I do not know, as far as I know he was born with it but I will look into it.”

As they drove away, the smaller man looks at his friend and asks in a various tone, “Does this mean you are still not ready to go back home?”

“No, we will head back home. I will look into Wolverine’s origins as time permits, I need to go back home. I need to start living up to what I have vowed to do so long ago. I have spent enough time training, it is now time for action.”

I wonder if that gives it away...