I was a child once. A simple girl, with friends and a family, and dreams of going to college to become a doctor or a scientist like my father…but that was a long time ago. So far back, in fact, that I cannot remember the faces of my friends or much of the language that was once my native tongue.

My father was a scientist at a company in connection with the American government. He was working in the defense department with a man by the name of William Stryker. He was a friend of my father's. He was often invited over for dinner, and treated as an honored guest in our home. My mother always served him extra helpings of the beef or fish wish rice and vegetables and she always had me ask if he would like another drink or some dessert.

I had known William for years- most of my life. He was a trusted friend and colleague of my father's, and it had been his idea to have me work with them as an assistant. It'd look good on a resume, and in my college applications, he had said.

I was there.

I helped them develop the adamantium that put an end to the lives of countless test subjects and victims of Wolverine's terrifying rage. I don't know when things began to change at the lab. It had been a swift change from pleasant routine to consuming suspicions. I had noticed that William would look at me oddly, and it was some time before I realized why.

I was a mutant- a twin in my abilities to Logan.

We were alike, but completely different. The man volunteered for the procedure, it was highly experimental and would more than likely end his life. My father and I traveled to a place called Alkali Lake to aid William with the operation. Logan was a killer, I knew it the moment he set foot in the lab. He looked smug and aloof, as if he owned the world and nothing could destroy him. I didn't yet realize that, short of a nuclear bomb, that thought was mostly true.

He flirted with me when we first met, but my father didn't approve and told me to stay away from any man like Logan. I was just a girl, curious about boys and men, but my father's word was law, and I avoided Logan at all cost…but I was still intensely interested in him.

Logan was a mutant, the first I'd ever met. He looked like any other man, but he could heal before the eye. I had known of my own abilities for years. The first time I'd healed myself I had cut my arm as I was playing in a park not far from our house. I was a young girl then, not even ten years old. I'd run home to show my mother the large cut on the underside of my foot- I had been playing barefoot with my friends and because we were careless, I had stepped on a piece of glass- but as I watched, the cut had healed before my eyes.

It was terrifying and amazing, much like Logan himself.

My mutation was nothing dangerous, and when I'd shown my father he was not disgusted or afraid. In fact, he hadn't even believed me, since the story was so outlandish. My mother scolded me for playing outside barefoot and for making up weird stories- she said that I either had to prove what had happened or I had to stop lying.

I had to demonstrate to my parents what had happened, so I'd used a sewing needle to prick my hand and we all watched as the tiny hole closed up in no longer than one second. My mother was more concerned that I had hurt myself, but relieved when it was evident that I would heal so quickly. Her main concern had always been for my safety, so of course having this "special gift" as she called it, was a blessing.

As a scientist my father was interested, but he would never hurt me or sit by and allow me to purposely hurt myself to further test my abilities. My parents knew of my mutation, but as it was not a visible change in my person, nor a dangerous power beyond my control, life went on as normal.

Life went on with talks of my grades, and of the bright future ahead of me, and hardly any mention at all of my mutation. I think that as time went on, my parents may have even forgotten from time to time that I was no longer human, but a mutant.

I traveled with my father to Alkali Lake, and there the procedure was done. Logan awoke from over three days of intense surgery and overdosing of powerful painkillers. I watched as he woke up and began to attack the men that he had been friends with only days earlier. The adamantium claws of my own father's design were Logan's weapon as he lashed out at everything that moved in his blind rage and fear.

Logan became Wolverine that day, a true animal.

My father and I had hid in an office while Wolverine attacked the other scientists and doctors in the lab. I cannot remember all that he'd said to me- only that he was sorry, and that he was in over his head, and that William Stryker- the man I had grown up trusting as a second father- was not what he seemed.

We emerged from the office once Wolverine had escaped. The knowledge that that animal was let loose in the world sickened me. I had helped create him- the lives he took would weigh down my soul when the day of my death came.

Stryker was surveying the damage done in the main laboratory when he returned. My father began to yell about the danger that Stryker had let loose, how he had not known of Stryker's vendetta against mutants and that he was leaving to save me from the mad schemes…but William said nothing. He stood still and silent as a statue while my father ranted out his temper.

"I want no more part of this madness, William! I'm leaving and I'm taking Yuriko with me, God help you if you stand in my way-"

But my father did not finish his departing sentence. How could he, with so many of Stryker's bullets in his belly? I ran forward to my father, but Stryker stepped out in front to block me. He grabbed me by the arms and forced me backward, until I was pinned against the wall.

The family friend I had known all my life was gone- this was a madman.

"The Wolverine has escaped, but I know your secret, Yuriko. If I can't have a volunteer for this, I'll take whatever else I can get. You're prettier than Logan, at least."

William had complimented me on my looks once I began to grow from a child into a young lady. I had worn a pink dress one day when I was newly thirteen and made a curtsey to him- I had read that it was a gesture that Americans once made to each other, it was a highly outdated thing to do, but William had understood my attempt to show respect. He'd called me the "prettiest flower in Japan" that day, and bowed to me. It was the first time that a man other than my father had given me such a compliment.

A silly infatuation had started then, and lasted for several years. I was shy around him because of this attraction that I could not hope to understand. I had loved him from afar as a teenaged girl might secretly love a famous musician or an actor.

My feelings for William Stryker had changed as I grew out of my infatuation with him and had since moved on to the boys in my school, but I had always respected and admired him.

I never knew much about William Stryker- but with the innate sympathies of a female, I knew that his life was a sad story. Once of heartbreak, loss and intense anger. William Stryker had lost his family, and robbed me of mine.

He killed any warm feelings I had for him the moment he pulled the trigger to kill my father. I felt a needle in my arm, and then I knew nothing. I don't know where the operations took place, for all I know Stryker may have called in more doctors to set to work on me at the same table where they had operated on Logan.

Days passed, possibly weeks, possibly months.

I awoke one night, earlier than I was meant to and all I could feel was a dull, aching pain throughout my entire body. My vision was blurred, and not helped by the dim lighting of the room where I was being held. I tried willing my mind to snap out of the drug's hold, but it was no use. Even with my healing power, the chemicals were too strong. I could only try to understand what had happened to me.

I heard a muffled sound to my right and started. William sat in a chair beside the cold rack that I'd been strapped to. He was resting his eyes, or perhaps lightly sleeping, but his presence was alarming. I realized then that I was naked, fixed to the table spread-eagle and completely helpless. My body felt heavy and I learned true hate in that moment. The man that had killed my father, betrayed my mother's trust and humiliated me…how long had I been unconscious? Had he touched my body while I was strapped here, unable to stop him? Had my mother been killed as well? Where was I?

A rush of questions, furious words and terrified thoughts flew through my mind, but I could not keep my eyes open for long.

It was much later when I opened my eyes because of voices. My body still ached terribly, and my mind was still clouded from the drugs. My vision was no longer blurred, however, and the lights were on in the room. Other people were in the room with me, all of them were men.

I was still naked and struggled against the straps, desperate so that I might escape to clothe myself before finding a way back to Japan.

"Now, now, Yuriko, don't be so shy. No one's going to hurt you, and you shouldn't be embarrassed anyway- we're all doctors here."

I turned- painfully, there was something wrong with my neck- and found Stryker lounging in front of a desk across the room. He was casual, and smiling at me the way a cat might smile at a cornered mouse.

"I'll kill you, you bastard! How dare you speak to me like this, after what you've done to me! To my father!"

All of this was in Japanese, mind you, and he may have been the only one there who'd understood a word I'd said. I felt rage in my heart, and saw red. Stryker came forward to me and bent my head forward. I caught sight of a syringe in his hand and panicked, but I was truly helpless to anything he wanted to do to me. It made me sick with self-loathing to know how pathetic I must have seemed to everyone else in the room that was watching him.

I felt something warm drip onto my neck and before I knew what was happening, I felt myself sinking. I could feel a tingling creep over my mind, a sinking of my consciousness. It was almost like falling asleep, though I was aware of everything around me.

I could see and hear, I could still feel and smell and taste- though I knew in that moment, trapped deep within my own mind that my body was no longer my own. I had become a weapon, a puppet, and a slave for William Stryker.

He'd removed all that I once was, and named me after himself.

Yuriko Oyama became something of a stage name, it was the name of a girl that no longer existed.

Poor Yuriko Oyama was gone, she became Lady Deathstyrke.