#hell!cat

For Hell Patrol Verse

What were they told to stop/start doing most often as a child?

Climbing too high in trees, sneaking cookies before dinner, and ruining nice clothes going exploring in the small wooded area behind her house. Nothing too out of the ordinary. Her love of nature started well before her cat characteristics manifested.

What lie do they most frequently remember telling? Does it haunt them?

The lie that haunts her the most is a lie of omission, but a really big one. After she went missing when her mutation first manifested, she allowed her parents to believe she was dead. In the intervening years, she’s considered going home many times, but her internalized self-loathing always stopped her. Now that she’s discovered that the adamantium in her body is slowly killing her, she thinks it would be cruel to return to them only for them to lose her again.

How do they cope with confusion (seek clarification, pretend they understand, etc)?

She gotten better about this since meeting Loki. In the past, she’s always felt like she needed to be perceived as “strong.” That didn’t mean she wouldn’t stop and ask for directions if she was lost, but if she found herself feel really out of place or thrown off balance, she might get irritable or even pick a fight rather than admit she was confused.

She’s softened a lot since then, but she’s still very selective with who she trusts. If she needs to ask a question or get clarification, she’ll talk to Loki or one of the other members of the Patrol. She trusts them not to judge her, and she trusts they’ll give her the best information.

How do they deal with an itch found in a place they can’t quite reach?

Cat was covered in in Dark Elf blood. Some of her own, as well, but mostly it was the elves’. She hated the smell of it. There was a kind of primal wrongness to it, something not matched by any other creature she’d encountered.

She had just slashed the jugular of one the last of this cell. Quick, efficient, messy. The Hell Patrol had located a group of Dark Elves operating out of Norway, and the battle had happened on an isolated beach. Better that way, out of civilian eyes and the possibility of civilian casualties. They’d fought well, and now the elves were dead or dying, the sand was tacky with blood, and she was thinking about whether it would show too much weakness if she asked Loki to just teleport the damn stuff off of her. But then her ears pricked, metaphorically at least. There was a sound coming from very far off…very high up, she finally realized, and she was the closest one to it.

“Something’s coming from the air!” was the first warning she called, poised to run in case it was some kind of weapon. But she took just a second to look up, and…it looked like a figure, looked humanoid. She’d known Thor to make that kind of dramatic entrance, but never from quite so high.

It was only seconds before whoever it was hit the ground, creating a shockwave and hitting with such impact that when Cat got back to her feet, ears ringing, she found she was at the edge of a crater. And down the crater, she could hear a heartbeat.

“They’re still alive!” was the second thing she called out, before starting to crawl down the side of the crater, her cat-like agility fighting with the softness of the sand.

She didn’t get too close, only enough to get a better look. It was a woman, in armor, and she was alive but wounded. Her blood didn’t smell human.

“Loki, she’s hurt!” she called, because he was the healer among them. And then, as an afterthought, “and she smells like Hogun!”

[Hell Patrol verse specific]

3. What kind of things is your OC allergic to?

Cat doesn’t have any allergies that she’s aware of. Sorry. She just doesn’t;)

6. What’s your OC’s favorite animal? Least favorite?

She has a fraught relationship with animals. They’re often confused about what sort of animal she is, and sometimes housepets react aggressively to her. She’s felt a certain kinship with mountain lions ever since Hank McCoy/Beast told her that they were the big cat her feline qualities most closely resembled. She thinks geese are jerks.

14. What foods does your OC like to eat? What are their least favorite foods?

She loves peanut butter in basically any context, and peanut butter and jam sandwiches in particular. She doesn’t like anything she perceives as too fancy or gourmet. She likes things that are simple and easy. Sometimes she just eats the peanut butter out of the jar.

15. If your OC could have any pet, what would they choose? Why?

She would have a lizard, because she wanted one when she was a kid and her parents wouldn’t let her have one. Now she’s an adult and she can do whatever she wants, but she’s never felt her life was stable enough for a pet.

16. What does your OC smell like?

Unscented soap, apple-scented shampoo, sweat (probably). Before she joined the Hell Patrol and cleaned up her act, whiskey.

31. What is their most traumatic memory/experience? What is their favorite memory?

Her most traumatic memory is the moment she realized that Victor/Sabertooth had betrayed her and sold her out to Weapon X. Three happy memories from three different times in her life: her father pushing her on a swing in her backyard. Sitting on the lawn at Xavier’s School talking to Logan. The moment Loki pulled her into a waltz after asking her to the ballet.

36. What does your character want most? What do they need really badly, compulsively? What are they willing to do, to sacrifice, to obtain?

What she wants most is to have her life matter or make a difference in some way. What she needs compulsively is a good fight, and she sometimes starts one to feed that compulsion. She’s willing to sacrifice her own life if she believes it would give her death meaning.

38. What would your character do with a million dollars?

She would donate it to a charity for mutant rights. Not just out of good nature. Because she doesn’t think she’ll be needing it.

48: What were their parents like? How has that affected how they are as an adult?

For Cat in @lokigodof‘s Hell Patrol verse specifically, she’s a little different than regular Cat

♖ :A kill you regret:

This guy knifed me once. Like people tried to mug me sometimes in NYC and usually I just said “fuck off” and either knocked them out or ran (I’m always faster), but this guy got me while I was turning. It wasn’t even a big deal, like, I wasn’t hurt bad, I stitched it myself and I heal faster so it was gone in a day. But maybe my instincts kicked in or my training, I can never tell the difference, and all of a sudden he just didn’t have a throat anymore. They pinned it on an animal attack. Brought down specialists from upstate to figure out what kind of animal it could have been. I watched the news bites on my phone. He didn’t have to die.

♗ :A kill you have been known to boast about

Sometimes I say shit when it’s been a really hard battle, you know, Dark Elves and Chitauri aren’t really that easy to kill maybe I should boast every time I get one of them, but I remember...when we were getting out of Weapon X, first thing I did was kill the main scientist who’d been in charge of my experiments. I did it ugly. Have you ever felt your heartbeat in the middle of your stomach? That’s your abdominal aorta, and I severed hers, so it was quick but she got a chance to look at the inside of herself for a second before she died. I thought that would be the kill I’d boast about. I thought I’d feel something. But I just felt...cold. Colder than adamantium, like...I don’t want to talk about this anymore.

♚ :A time when you showed mercy

I’ve never killed someone who didn’t stand a chance. There have been times I’ve wanted to, because of what they did, but I’ve never killed someone who couldn’t have killed me, too. Except that one time, that I told you about.

♜ :Post-kill actions, thoughts, or emotions

I mean I want to check my gear; I don’t usually use weapons but there’s still cleaning up to do...oh, right after? I...huh. I feel empty. Not bad empty. Not good empty either like I’ve been doing meditation or something. Just empty. I just made someone else empty. I feel empty too. Are you like my therapist now?

♟ :A close call to being killed yourself

Cat woke, screaming. She was in a room, high tech, no windows, looked medical. She herself was on a cot of some sort with an IV dripping into her arm, and it was only then that she realized she was trying to sit up and someone was holding her down by the shoulder.

“Let me go!” she said, slashing at the arm with her other hand, watch claw marks appear, and then heal, almost instantly. It was only then that she looked up at the owner of the arm.

She recognized him, them as one of the people who had broken her and Bear out of the Weapon X facility. The one she hadn’t trusted. The one who smelled oddly like Victor Creed. There was a nurse standing well behind him.

“You’re…” she let the sentence hang. When she lay back down on the cot, he took away the hand.

“Logan,” he said, in a gruff voice. “Name’s Logan. I’m…Victor’s my half brother. That’s why you keep smellin’ ‘im. He’s nowhere near here, though, kid, I promise. An’ I don’t take after him much.”

“Logan,” she repeated. “I’m…Cat.” She looked around. Someone else had entered the room, a large, blue-furred person wearing wire-rimmed glasses. She had seen him on the rescue mission, too, but not with the glasses.

“Cat, huh? Works. This is Annie,” he gestured to the nurse behind him, who seemed to be gradually calming down. “And that’s Hank. He’s a doctor.” She nodded, but looked back at Logan. “I recognize you…you’re Wolverine.”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Welcome to Xavier’s School for the Gifted. And yeah, unfortunately you and I share a past with Weapon X. That’s over now, though. You’re safe here, kid.”

The one Logan called Hank had made his way over, introduced himself as “Dr. Hank McCoy,” and starting looking over the monitors they had her hooked up to.

“So,” she asked, because there were a lot of beds in here and she was the only one in one of them. “Where’s Bear? You know, the big guy who was with me?”

No one had really been talking, but they somehow managed to get quieter.

It was Dr. McCoy, who she now recognized from the news as “Beast,” who finally spoke. “He didn’t make it, Cat. I’m very sorry,” they were all looking at her, she supposed it made, sense, but they were all looking at her, and she didn’t like it.” Dr. McCoy placed a large hand on hers.

“But, how could he not have made it? I know I was unconscious at the end, but we were like ten feet away from the plane. How could he not have made it?”

“He wasn’t…killed in combat,” continued Dr. McCoy. He was…I don’t know if you knew, but Bear was very sick, from what they had done to him. He was part of a new experiment, you understand. His body couldn’t withstand the adamantium and other chemicals they were using. We did everything we could for him, I promise.”

“But…” and all of a sudden she felt very shaky and like she didn’t, in fact, want to get out of the bed. “Bear and I were in the same experimental group. That’s how we got out together. So…am I very sick?”

“Well,” said Dr. McCoy. “Bear was further along--”

Logan reached out and put a hand on his shoulder to stop him, “Hank.” And then he looked down at Cat and said. “You’re gonna be just fine, kid.” And she appreciated the gesture. But she knew exactly what it meant.