Whispers of Madripoor: A Wolverine Mystery

Balmy air tinged with salt and diesel swirled around Elle as she ducked into the low-lit bar behind Eva. The battered sign above the door proclaimed “Princess Bar,” letters scabbed with age and bullet holes. Outside, Madripoor’s lawless island night pulsed with menace—here, every footstep sounded like a dare, every smirk risked a knife in the back.

Inside smelled of sweat and victory, of rum and spent gunpowder. The crowd thickened around green felt tables and a long bar lined with mirrored bottles. A trio of pirates argued in Tagalog near the pool table, their weapons unconcealed on their hips. Elle’s heart thudded. Eva, her sharp-jawed, steel-eyed protector, hovered close.

“Over there.” Eva nudged Elle toward the shadowed corner.

He sat crumpled over a whiskey, cowboy hat pulled low, the knuckles of one hand scarred and craggy as though from repeated wars. Elle straightened, wiped her clammy palms on her jeans, and threaded her way to his booth.

She stopped a few feet shy. “Excuse me—are you Logan?”

He didn’t look up, just lifted his glass and took a slow pull. “Depends who’s askin’,” he drawled, voice gravelly enough to scrape skin. One eyebrow lifted under the brim.

Elle hesitated. She didn’t want to beg, not in front of Wolver—Logan, the X-Man, the man of claws and violence and reluctant mercy. But begging might be all she had left.

“My name’s Elle,” she managed. “Eva and I—we need help. Someone’s after me. Someone dangerous.”

Eva kept her eyes flicking across the crowd, her hand resting on the tranq pistol concealed beneath her jacket.

Logan glanced at Eva. “You vouch for the girl?” he grunted.

“Elle’s good,” Eva said, voice clipped. “We’ve got a problem with Diamondback’s crew. They want Elle because of what she saw at the docks.”

At that, Logan straightened, his figure broadening out of the shadows. He studied Elle, those blue eyes—hard as shivs—incongruously gentle for a moment. “Knew Diamondback’d cause trouble sooner or later,” he muttered.

Elle pressed on. “We just need a place to lay low. Somewhere safe. Please.”

He looked past her, as if peering beyond the pop music and the reek of spilled beer, weighing invisible options. Wolverine always looked like someone hunting ghosts—maybe his own, maybe someone else’s. But whatever he found in her face, it caused him to nod once.

“All right, kid,” he said, standing. He was shorter than movies or comics suggested; the menace was in the way he moved, like a panther through brush. “Follow me. Don’t make eye contact, don’t talk. If I say run, you run.”

Eva tucked Elle in between her and Logan as they crabbed through the bar. Heads turned briefly—one man caught Logan’s eye, recognized him, and looked away fast. No one here wanted a fight with a legend. Outside, Madripoor’s neon bled across the pavement, glaring even at midnight. Rats pawed through discarded shells of durian. Down crooked alleys, the sound of waves and shouts, the throb of boats’ engines.

Logan led them several blocks, through an oyster-cracker tangle of alleys, over a rusted fence, through a door hidden behind garbage bins. Inside: darkness, then the scent of leather and steel. The safehouse was less a home than a bunker, walls lined with weapons and ancient posters, a battered sofa pushed against one window.

Elle sagged onto the couch, the tension leaking out of her muscles. Eva prowled the perimeter, making sure all locks latched.

Logan rummaged in a tiny fridge and tossed her a bottle of water. Under the yellowing light, he seemed like a weary grizzly, eager for solitude. But now he was stuck with two fugitives.

“Tell me,” he growled, settling into a chair, “what exactly did you see at the docks?”

Elle’s mind flashed to the image. A meeting at midnight. Diamondback’s signature white suit. A shipment crate cracked open to reveal not weapons, but six terrified children, all blindfolded, shivering. Elle had snapped a photo before she’d run, more out of habit than bravery. She relayed it all in a hoarse whisper.

The room fell hard with silence. Logan’s jaw clenched; it was an ugly truth, but a familiar one. He stood and pulled a battered phone from his pocket, thumbed out a text.

“We’ll set you up here for tonight. In the morning, I’ll call a contact—Patch. He owes me. He can get you off the island.”

“And Diamondback’s crew?” Eva pressed.

He bared his teeth. “They’re not your problem anymore.”

That night, Elle lay on the couch under scratchy blankets, listening to Eva whisper strategies near the door and to Logan pacing, heavy and rhythmic, like a storm’s footfall. The safehouse felt like the safest place on Madripoor—maybe the only safe place.

Before sleep claimed her, Elle looked at the photo saved on her phone, the evidence cradled beneath her palm. She had found unexpected sanctuary in this den of thieves, beside a reluctant hero whose scars promised both protection and vengeance.

Somewhere beyond the barricaded door, Madripoor’s sins rolled on, but for now, under Wolverine’s watchful gaze, Elle was safe. For the first time in a long while, she let herself believe, just a little, in hope.

This story was generated by user live.finezja with assistance by one of OpenAI’s large-scale language-generation model; prompts used to help generate the story are shown below.

Images were generated with OpenAI's AI system, DALL·E 2, or uploaded by the user.

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