This is just a oneshot/drabble thing that was running havoc in my head until I got it out. Please read and review.

I don't own anything you recognise, including the characters and plot from X-Men (the movies).

This story is set just before 'The X-Men' but follows the path of X-Men: First Class, if that makes sense. If not, you don't really need to know anything to follow, it's just a bit of nonsense I wanted to get out.


"She's a cold-blooded murderer who has attacked us and innocents without question, why are we rescuing her?" Cyclops asked, as he followed Storm and Jean through the building where their target mutant was being held captive.

"Because the Professor asked us, you know that Scott. Now hurry up. We've got to get back to the mansion with her and that's going to be difficult." Storm ordered, lengthening her stride to cover the corridor faster. They turned to the left and Cyclops burned the door handle, before Jean forced it open, it swinging open to bang into the wall behind it. Storm walked in, her power settling around her like a cloak as her eyes flashed white and static electricity radiated off her. The three scientists in the room looked up in surprise but were soon knocked unconscious by a wind blowing them back into the wall, gently enough not to seriously hurt them but strong enough to knock them out.

"Grab her and let's go." Storm quickly undid the chains holding the mutant down and she slid down off the vertical table, only to be caught by Cyclops, who slung her over his shoulder. The trio quickly returned to their jet and made a hasty return to the school, not wanting to be caught leaving with the mutant.


The Professor was waiting in the labs for them as Cyclops laid the mutant gently on the table for Jean to examine.

"I am fairly certain she's only been sedated, which should be wearing off soon. It didn't look like they had done anything to her yet, just started to study her." Jean told the old telepath who smiled gratefully at her.

"Thank you, all of you, for going to get her, it couldn't have been easy for you to forget what she has done against you to save her." The Professor spoke louder for Storm and Cyclops to hear as they started to leave to change.

Whatever was going to be said was cut off by the mutant groaning loudly and sitting up with a gasp, glancing around with wariness and something akin to hatred in her eyes.

"Mystique, relax, we will not hurt you." The Professor rolled closer to the table.

The blue mutant focused on him for a moment then let out a groan and dropped back onto the table, clutching her stomach in pain. Jena rushed forward to help but was stopped as the blue girl growled and forced out through gritted teeth, "Don't touch me!"

"Mystique, we only wish to help. Once Jean has deemed you stable you can leave and go back to Magneto, but please, let her check you over." The Professor seemed to beg her. Storm and Cyclops stayed in the room, just incase the mutant tried anything as Jean used a scanner to scan her stomach, then lift a needle from the far bench to her hand.

"This is just a antiemetic drug, to help with the nausea and pain, is that ok?" Jean asked.

Mystique glanced at the Professor who smiled reassuringly before she nodded to Jean.

"Why'd you come get me?" Mystique demanded, as Jena inserted the needle and injected the meds into her system.

"The Professor asked us to." Storm told her.

"You really believe I'd just leave you to their mercy?" the Professor asked her. "I knew Erik would leave you to escape on your own, I merely stepped in to speed up the process."

"I can take care of myself." Mystique growled, standing up the moment Jean was finished. "Thanks for wasting your time but getting me out quicker." She told the team then stalked out.

"Should we follow her?" Cyclops asked, as the Professor stayed staring at the bench the blue shape shifter had originally been sitting.

"No, she's leaving, heading back to her place with Magneto, she is fine now." the Professor started to roll away.

"Professor?" Storm asked hesitantly.

"Yes Storm?" the Professor stopped to look at her.

"Why'd you ask us to go help her? We all knew she would escape eventually."

"A long time ago, we were friends. And I promised her I would protect her. I knew she could escape, but before those scientists started experimenting on her? I couldn't leave her to be poked, drugged and tested like an animal, I will not leave any mutant to that fate if I can help." The Professor left the three X-Men curious to his past with Mystique and Magneto and slightly used as Mystique had just left without even a backward glance.

"Just friends?" Cyclops wondered out loud. "There's no way they were just friends, I wouldn't do that for an old friend who now hated me. Someone I loved, yes, just a friend, no."

"Leave it alone Scott. It's not our business, it's the Professor's." Jean sighed, moving to clean the bench down and ready for its next patient.

"It never is." Scott muttered, walking out to shower and change while Storm stayed to help Jean clean up.


"Mystique, good to see you returned to us in one piece." Magneto told her as she turned up at their base, completely recovered and no longer weak nor sick.

"I can handle myself." Mystique shrugged.

"I know, that's why I didn't send someone after you." Magneto turned back to Toad to continue ordering him about.

Mystique sighed inwardly. She used to enjoy Magneto's lack of concern over her abilities to do her job and to look after herself, but the knowledge that he hadn't even bothered to send someone after her, yet Charles did ate at her. If she was honest with herself, she would give anything to go back to Charles and beg forgiveness, to beg him to say that it wasn't her fault for leaving and that he didn't hate her for all that she had done, but the damage was done. They were no longer Raven and Charles, brother and sister, they were Mystique and Professor X, names that she had come up with herself, enemies in the path that lay winding before them. And her pride refused to let them be anything else.


The End

Please review and let me know what you think of the piece, and what needs improvement and stuff like that.